




F 

J tig 

fy j \t 



.•'X 


































* 





























V 

































* 







































































jack-o’-lantern at last.” (See page 123.) 









JACK-O'-LANTERN 


BY 

MARY T. WAGGAMAN. 


* 



New York, Cincinnati, Chicago : 

BENZIGER BROTHERS, 

Printers to the Holy Apostolic See. 

1900. 


T WO copies 

Library of Congress 
Office c f the 

I$m>$ 9 innn 


,W 

3<^" 


Reglotor of Copyright 


5?Q\ 


IN THE SAME SERIES. 


Each volume handsomely bound in cover 
with colored design. ibmo, 40 cents. 6 vols. 
in a box, $ 2.40 . 

A HOSTAGE OF WAR. By Mary G. Bone- 
steel. 

FRED’S LITTLE DAUGHTER. By Sara 
Trainer Smith. 

AN EVERY-DAY GIRL. By Mary Cather- 
ine Crowley. 

JACK-O’-LANTERN. By Mary T. Wagga- 

MAN. 

PAULINE ARCHER. By Anna T. Sadlier. 

PANCHO AND PANCH1TA. By Mary E. 
Mannix. 





Copyright, 1899, by Benziger Brothers. 


SECOND COPY, 


CONTENTS. 


i 

pa ax 

CHAPTER I. 

A Flight , 7 

CHAPTER II. 

Heatherton Hall 21 

CHAPTER III. 

Jack-o’-Lantern. . 83 

CHAPTER IV. 

Light and Shadow 45 

CHAPTER V. 

A Friendly Ghost ST 

CHAPTER VI. 

A Trip to Roxton. 71 

5 


6 


Contents. 


PAGE 

CHAPTER VII. 

Old Meg 84 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Little Misb Heatherton 94 

CHAPTER IX. 

Two Little Truants 108 

CHAPTER X. 

Through the Storm 122 

CHAPTER XI. 

A Golden Sunset 135 

CHAPTER XII. 

“The One Ewe Lamb” 146 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Conclusion 158 


JACK-O’-LANTERN. 


CHAPTEE I. 

A FLIGHT. 

“ Mountain air / 7 said Doctor Doane, as 
he scribbled the prescription-paper on his 
broad knee — “ Mountain air is what the boy 
needs, madam. You may give him this mix- 
ture three times a day / 7 and the great medical 
oracle handed the bit of folded wisdom to the 
anxious mother; “but it is not physic the 
youngster wants. It is mountain air, and 
plenty of it. If you keep him in this malari- 
ous atmosphere during the heated term — well, 
you must take the consequences . 77 And the 
famous doctor rose with the air of a man who 
knows his time to be worth a dollar a minute; 
and patting Dickie’s golden head, hurried 
7 


8 


A Flight. 


away quite regardless of the knell he had left 
sounding in the loving mother's ear — the icy 
chill of fear he had sent to her loving heart. 
Mountain air ! The doctor talked as if it 
could be bought at sixpence a bottle. Moun- 
tain air ! when the great breezy peaks over 
which swept the life-giving elixir w r ere one 
hundred miles away; when, besides Dickie, 
there were four sturdy, active young Lind- 
says bursting buttons and outgrowing frocks 
in a way that kept mamma’s fingers busy from 
morning until night, while their healthy ap- 
petites made papa’s monthly bills very serious 
mathematical problems indeed. Mountain 
air ! when this pretty little bird-box of a 
house was leased for three years, and there 
were just twenty dollars cash in the family 
purse for possible contingencies. 

“ Is consequences bad to take, mamma ? ” 
asked blue-eyed Dickie, evidently reflecting 
on the doctor’s parting words. “ Is it worse 
than cod-liver oil ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, my baby, my baby ! ” answered 
his mother, clasping him to her breast and 
hiding her face for a moment in his curls. 

For Dickie had been ailing weeks now, and 
the blue eyes had a starry light, the little face 


A Flight. 9 

a waxen color that made her sick and faint 
with mother fear. 

“ Mamma, dear mamma, what is the mat- 
ter ? Are you crying, mamma ? 99 

“ Crying ? ” said mamma, lifting her face 
with a pitiful little laugh. “ Cryihg ? Not a 
bit of it. Why should mamma cry, my 
Dickie-bird ? Come, let us go down-stairs 
and see if your baked apple is done. Mam’ 
Patsy will cover it with nice cream, and 
then — 99 

“ Oh, I don’t like baked apples,” said 
Dickie wearily. “ I don’t like cream. I just 
want to lie down on the sofa. I am so tired, 
mamma, so tired.” 

And the little form sank wearily back 
among the cushions, the waxen lids closed, 
and Dickie, who had always looked as if he 
were a little angel astray, seemed only waiting 
God’s whispered call to spread his wings and 
%• 

“ Oh, I must take him away ! I must ! 
But how — how ? ” thought the tortured little 
mother as she hopelessly surveyed the ques- 
tion of ways and means from every point. 
ft My baby, my baby ! I cannot give him 
TIP-” 


10 


A Flight. 


And dropping on her knees by the sleeping 
child, she buried her face on his pillows and 
wept softly and unrestrainedly, as she prayed 
that God would spare her darling. 

But quiet prayers and tears are luxuries 
not reserved for the mothers of five. 
Screened by the woollen table-cover under 
which he had retired to surreptitiously demol- 
ish the last new magazine. Rogue Robin 
surveyed the pitiful scene with wide-open 
eyes of dismay. Rogue Robin was just six, 
with a tangle of auburn curls falling over a 
milk-white brow, and the face of an adoring 
angel. 

Yet not undeservedly had Rogue Robin 
received his pet name. Behind that cherubic 
visage lurked the veriest imp of mischief that 
ever ran rampant in a household. There was 
little that Rogue Robin had not tried within 
his brief but active career. He had been 
rescued from a polar exploration on the roof 
of the house, dragged by the heels from the 
nursery chimney, caught by the waistband as 
he was making a downward flight from a 
third-story window, and extracted by a be- 
nevolent bachelor’s umbrella-hook from the 
neighboring sewer. 


11 


A Flight . 

So often had he been “ brought back” by 
the friendly grip of the law from fights, fires, 
funerals, circuses, and all public functions at- 
tended with horses or music, that Officer 
Magee at the corner was on most cordial and 
paternal terms with him. 

“Kape to your bate, Eogue Eobin. Eve 
got me eye on ye,” was the cheery remin- 
der. 

But roar, fight, and shout as the Eogue 
could and did in all emergencies, he never 
cried. Therefore as he peered out of his hid- 
ing-place to-day with the last page of the 
demolished magazine in his hand, and saw 
mamma, whose unfailing smile made the sun- 
shine of the home, in tears by Dickie’s side, 
terror seized upon him. He scurried unseen 
from the room and slid down the banisters 
just in time to thump into sixteen-year-old 
Fred as he came rushing in to lunch. 

“ Look out, there ! What’s the matter with 
you, Eogue ? ” 

“ Dickie’s dead,” piped Eogue Eobin 
mournfully. 

" What ? ” gasped Fred, his rosy cheek pal- 
ing. 

“ Dickie’s ’most dead,” repeated the Eogue, 


12 


A Flight. 


inserting a saving doubt. “And mamma’s 
a-praying and a-crying awful.” 

“Why — why — he was up this morning,” 
said Fred. “ What has happened ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” said Rogue Robin gravely. 
“ The doctor came and said he must have 
mountain air, and I guess he can’t get it. 
And he won’t eat baked apples or cream ot 
anything, and mamma is crying, and he must 
be going to die. I say, Fred, do you think 
they’ll take me to the funeral ? ” 

“ Hush up that, you little scoundrel, or I’ll 
shake the life out of you ! ” said Fred fiercely. 
“ Where are Tess and Lo .1 ? ” 

“ Down in the dining-room. Fred, will 
Dickie have a hearse with white ponies ? ” 
“You’ll have a thrashing in about two 
minutes if you don’t let up that ghoul talk,” 
said Fred, collaring his small brother wrat'h- 
fully and swinging him into the dining-room, 
where his pretty sisters, Tess and Lou, stood 
in solemn conclave with Mam’ Patsy; for the 
doctor’s fiat had thrilled through the family 
like an electric shock, and Dickie-bird was 
the darling of all. 

“ J es’ wat I ben telling yo’ mar all ’long,” 
said Mam’ Patsy, who,, having “nussed” all 


A Flight. 


13 


five young Lindsays, was high and infallible 
authority. “ I says pintedly, ‘ Miss Nell, dat 
ar chile is a peaking nachaliy away. Folks 
may talk as dey please, but I nebber seen a 
boy wif a blue vein ober his nose rizzed yet/ ” 

“And has Dickie a blue vein over his 
nose ? ” asked Tess breathlessly. 

“ Dat he has, chile, dat he lias,” said Mam’ 
Patsy, nodding ruefully, “ and more’n dat, he 
nebber tumbled out of bed in his life — jest lay 
quiet and easy, even wif dat ar Rogue Robin 
rolling plumb ober him. It’s de wustest kind 
ob luck when a chile won’t fall out ob bed 
nohow. I alius felt easy about Rogue Robin, 
fer he turned ober his cradle three times, be- 
sides tumbling out ob his ma’s bed and break- 
ing his collar-bone. You, Rogue, you” — 
Mam’ Patsy suddenly broke off in her remem- 
brances — “ Lord bless dat chile; if he ain’t 
eatin’ ebbery bit of Dickie’s apple ! ” and she 
made a dive into the kitchen after the small 
marauder, who was smilingly licking his 
creamy lips after the last stolen spoonful. 

“ You horrid little wretch ! ” said Lou in- 
dignantly. 

“When your poor darling little brother is 
dying up-stairs,” said Tess tearfully. 


14 


A Flight. 


“ Oh, let up, girls ! ” growled Fred, feeling 
that the clouds were getting altogether too 
heavy for boyish endurance. “What’s the 
good of croaking like ravens ? Dickie isn’t 
dead by a long shot, and he isn’t going to die 
either. If the doctor says he wants mountain 
air, why, he has got to have it.” 

“ But how ? ” asked the girls. 

“ Oh, well, somehow,” answered Fred 
vaguely. “ When a thing has to be done, why, 
then, you just have to go and do it.” 

“We’ll pray,” said blue-eyed Tess softly. 
“ Let us go ’round to the convent chapel, Lou, 
this evening and pray. And maybe,” 
added Tess, who had sweet, wise fancies all 
her own, “ St. J oseph will show us some way 
to ‘fly into Egypt,’ as he did, and save our 
little Dickie.” 

“He will have to show us a pocketful of 
money as well,” said black-eyed Lou, with a 
nod. And Fred’s heart sank again as he 
agreed with her. 

Altogether it was a dreary luncheon, for a 
shadow rested upon the little household that 
seemed to chill their sunlit sky. 

Far away indeed, as yet, but still above their 
happy home, hovered that mighty, dark- 


A Flight. 15 

winged angel whom mortals know and fear as 
Death. 

“ Mountain air ! ” thought Fred as, clap- 
ping on his hat at last, he turned out again 
into the hot, baking streets. “ Gee whiz ! 
this feels like it.” 

For the July sun was blazing down like 
the midsummer tyrant that he was, and the 
trees stood up like still, painted things against 
the glaring blue of the sky. Not a twig or 
leaf stirred; not a roving cloud dared show 
itself; the fierce sun-king was ruling with 
despotic sway. Even the great office-rooms 
of Judson & Judson, where Fred earned a 
little money by doing odd job work during 
the summer vacation, felt still and breathless 
to-day, and the clerks loosened their neckties 
and mopped their brows as they bent over 
rent-rolls and titles. 

“You can tick off the ads. this evening, 
Freddy,” said Mr. Chumleigh, motioning to 
the typewriter. “ Dixon’s got an incipient 
sunstroke and gone home. Twenty new ad- 
vertisements for the morning papers, so drive 
ahead, my boy.” 

Fred took his place and began to tick at 
his neighbor’s dictation 


16 


A Flight. 


“ By George ! ” said Mr. Chumleigh as he 
unfolded one of his many letters. “ Here’s 
Heatherton Hall on our hands again.” 

“ Ho ! ” drawled the clerk at his side in 
surprise. 

“Mr. Judson threw up the business two 
months ago; said he couldn’t and wouldn’t 
bother with such an old rat-trap. Why, it’s 
in the depths of the Alleghanies, twenty miles 
from a railroad.” 

“ The Alleghanies ! ” Fred pricked up his 
ears. The Alleghanies ! and a vision of great 
wind-swept heights seemed to rise before his 
eyes, as he thought of the little blue-veined 
face lying in the close, hot sitting-room at 
home. 

“ This is a change of tune,” said Mr. 
Chumleigh. “ Colonel Heatherton writes 
from Paris that since the place cannot be 
rented, to put in a reliable caretaker and pay, 
if necessary, twenty dollars a month; for 
there are family portraits and papers of value. 
I wouldn’t take the iob for fifty.” 

“ Gee, I would ! ” blurted [out Fred ex- 
citedly. 

“ Would what ? ” asked Mr. Chumleigh, 
staring. 


A Flight . 


17 


“ Take the job — take care of Heatherton 
Hall.” 

“ You ! ” exclaimed his neighbor. “ Look 
here, yon haven’t been getting sunstruck too, 
Freddy, have yon ? ” 

“No,” answered Fred, “nor moonstruck 
either. But Fve got a little brother at home 
who is pretty sick, and the doctor says he 
must have mountain air; and — and — well, 
father isn’t a rich man, you know, and can’t 
gite it to him. But if it’s twenty dollars to 
take care of the house — ” 

“ It’s just that,” said Mr. Chumleigh. “ I 
only wish it were forty. Lay the advertise- 
ment over and see your father about it, my 
boy, and if you want Heatherton Hall to-mor- 
row, it’s yours. Half the roof is off, I be- 
lieve, and half the chimney’s down. Ghosts, 
wildcats, and moonshiners form the moun- 
tain society, and it’s twenty miles from a 
railroad. But if you want ‘ mountain air’ 
you’ll get the genuine, unadulterated, double- 
X article, as freely as if you paid five dollars 
a day at a fashionable hotel for it.” 

“ Does it cost much to get up there ? ” 
asked Fred. 

“Well, I don’t know,” answered Chum- 


18 


A Flight. 


leigh hesitatingly. “ Britton, you were up 
around there 'hunting last fall; what’s the fare 
up to Roxton ? ” 

“ Pretty steep, but we took our tent and 
traps, you know, and went by the canal-boat. 
It wasn’t half bad, and they’d lump a whole 
family for one railroad fare. If you are 
thinking of emigrating, Freddy, try it. You 
can get a wagon at Roxton to go up the 
mountain. Load up with a few groceries; 
you’ll need nothing else. It’s a wilderness 
flowing with milk and honey.” 

And as Fred listened with wide-open ears 
to this friendly counsel, he thought of Tess 
kneeling in the little convent chapel, and felt, 
with a queer thrill in his heart, that St. 
J oseph had indeed “ shown the way.” And 
a very pleasant way it proved: for Captain 
Tom Trent, who owned half a dozen canal- 
boats, was an old friend of Mr. Lindsay, and 
it happened that one of the biggest and clean- 
est of his clumsy-looking fleet was just going 
to Roxton to load up with grain; and as jolly 
Captain Tom declared, “ he’d just as lief have 
babies for ballast as anything else.” 

So it came to pass that six days after Doc- 
tor Doane had given his prescription, a big 


A Flight. 


19 


wagon slowly creaked up the mountain side. 
Higher and higher and higher, until the tree- 
tops were waving below, and the river could 
be seen winding through the valley like a 
thread of silver; and the trains puffing over 
the trestles, twenty miles away, seemed swing- 
ing in spider-webs over the rocky gorges be- 
low; and still the wagon journeyed upward 
with Mam’ Patsy’s boy, Black Ben, on the 
driver’s seat and Fred beside him, Rogue 
Robin held firmly between his knees, and 
Tess and Lou and mamma and Mam’ Patsy 
behind; while Dickie-bird, nestling in shawls 
and rugs and robes and cushions, laughed 
aloud in glee as the breeze tossed his golden 
curls. 

Mr. Lindsay was obliged to remain at his 
business, so Fred commanded the little party 
that was storming the heights in Love’s 
name. 

“ There it is, at last,” said Fred, pointing to 
a great pine-shaded house rising grim and 
gray against the setting sun. 

“ Oh, isn’t it big ! ” exclaimed Tess breath- 
lessly. 

“ And isn’t it awfully lonesome ! ” cried 
Lou. 


A Flight. 


“ The front steps are gone/ 5 chirped Rogue 
Robin delightedly. 

“ And de kitchen chimbly tumbled down,” 
gasped Mam’ Patsy. “ De Lor’ ! Miss Nell, 
what you and all dese chilluns gwine to do 
in an old roost like dis ? 99 

“ Live and love,” answered mamma as she 
caught Dickie-bird in her arms and saw the 
faint color the breeze had already kissed into 
his cheeks. 

“ Live and love. Mam* Patsy, live and 
love ! ” 


CHAPTER II. 


HEATHERTON HALL. 

A queer old “ roost ” indeed it was. 
There was a great hall that seemed almost 
wide enough to turn a stage-coach in, and a 
broad, winding stair, down which six small 
boys could tumble abreast; and more rooms 
than one could count; at least Tess and 
Lou thought so, for just as they had settled 
the number satisfactorily, they would dis- 
cover a dark door, or a zigzag staircase, lead- 
ing to two or three more. Such queer low- 
pitched rooms, with little diamond-paned win- 
dows peeping out through hoods of ivy, and 
great black-throated chimneys filled with 
nesting swallows; and odd-looking furniture, 
that Mam ? Patsy declared must have 
“ growed ” there, for “ moving 99 it was be- 
yond mortal strength; and long mirrors that 
made Tess’s heart jump half a dozen times, 
before she realized that the tall, fair-haired 
21 


22 


Heatherton Hall. 


girl walking out of the corner to meet her was 
her own pretty self. 

True, the porch steps were down and the 
kitchen “ chimbly ” and most of the kitchen 
roof; but the main house stood staunch and 
firm as an old fortress; and when Black Ben 
had made a cooking department in a big 
storeroom, and the dust was blown from the 
furniture, and the sunlight lit on the 
diamond-paned windows, and little voices 
were chirping on the staircase, and little feet 
pattering through the hall, the old “ roost” 
was a “ nest ” again, full of warm young life 
and love. 

Then there was a delightful old wilderness 
of a garden that must once have been a very 
aristocratic affair indeed; for it went tip- 
toeing down the mountain-side in a succes- 
sion of stone terraces, with late berries ripen- 
ing on the hedges, and peach and plum trees 
trained against the south walls, while a noisy 
little brook that had once filled the fountain 
leaped away in a foaming waterfall as if 
laughing “ You’ll never catch me again ” 
to the poor little broken-nosed Cupid who 
stood ruefully watching his empty urn. 

Mam’ Patsy did the marketing at the back 


Heatherton Hall. 


23 


door, where grave-faced women in “ slab ” 
sunbonnets, and hare-legged, solemn-eyed 
children, brought milk, butter, eggs, chickens, 
honey, and vegetables every day. 

“ A chicken for a dime, Mam’ Patsy ! ” ex- 
claimed Mrs. Lindsay, as she was conferring 
with her faithful factotum. “ You must be 
mistaken.” 

“ De LoP, Miss Nell, dey’d gib ’em fur a 
nickel ef I jewed ’em down,” chuckled Mam’ 
Patsy. “ What ’count’s chickens up hyah ? 
What good is dimes up hyah ? Got no 
churches or s’cieties or nuffin. Nebber hab 
eben camp-meetings,” said Mam’ Patsy scorn- 
fully. 

“ Cal Jones don’t know who Our Lord is,” 
piped Rogue Robin, who was perched on the 
window-sill, nibbling a corneake. 

“ Oh, Robbie ! ” said his shocked mother. 

" He don’t,” repeated Robbie. “ He said I 
was talking about the man that kept the store 
at Mill Creek" 

“ I dun tell yon ’bout dese hyah po’ white 
trash,” said Mam’ Patsy. “ J es’ nachally don’t 
know nuffin. Didn’t dat ar pumpkin-face 
gal, Maria Jane, dat come up hyah ’lowing 
she knowed how to wash, raw-starch all my 


24 


Heatherton Hall. 


sheets and pillow-cases till dey could ’most 
stan’ alone ? ” 

“ And she chewed tobacco,” chirped Rogue 
Robin delightedly. “ She gave me a piece to 
try.” 

“Jes’ let me ketch you a-trying it,” said 
Mam’ Patsy, turning fiercely on her pet nurs- 
ling, who being at once the pride and torment 
of her life came in for an extra share of atten- 
tion. “ Let me ketch you at any of dat fool- 
ishness and I’ll lay you’ll find a switch roast- 
ing for you in dis fire dat will make you sing. 
De Lord knows vdiat we’se a-gwine to do wif 
dat boy, Miss Nell,” continued Mam’ Patsy, 
as Rogue Robin made a somersault out of the 
window and bounded away. “ He’s gwine to 
learn all sorts ob debbilment in dis hyah 
place.” 

“ We must w^atch him,” said Mrs. Lindsay, 
anxiously feeling that “ Skyland ” had its dis- 
advantages. “ He’s too young to go round 
here alone.” 

“ Watch him ! ” repeated Mam’ Patsy 
grimly. “ Don’t do to stop at watching 
Rogue Robin ! Didn’t I hab him tied to de 
table-leg all yester mawning and de minnit 
my back was turned de little rascal cut de 


Heatherton Hall. 


25 


ro^e wif de knife I left on de table, and 
clipped de Lord knows whar. Ain’t Black 
Ben a-telling him all de time ’bout de wolves 
and bears dat’s waiting up in de woods to 
eat him ? Lor’,” chuckled Mam’ Patsy, “ you 
can’t skeer dat boy nohow, you nebber could; 
he jest nachally out breaking.” 

“He must be kept at home, around the 
garden at least,” said Mrs. Lindsay resolutely; 
and for a day or two the Rogue, held sternly 
within bounds, was a very household angel; 
then he disappeared again, to be brought 
home perched on Cal Jones’s sturdy shoulder 
— a forlorn little figure dripping to the skin. 

“Pulled him outen the river,” explained 
the young mountain giant briefly. 

“Just went a-fishing, mamma,” said the 
small prodigal, mournfully displaying a spool 
of thread and a bent pin; “’cause to-morrow is 
Friday, and I caught ’em, too,” said Robbie 
triumphantly. “ Caught ’em in my hand,” 
and diving into his wet pocket he brought out 
two tadpoles. “ Ain’t they nice, mamma ? 
Dickie can have ’em for tea.” 

A faint smile flickered over Cal’s face, that 
usually looked as if carved of wood, so 
changeless was every feature. They were not 


26 


Heaiherton Hall. 


bad features either; but with hair, skin, and 
clothes bleached and tanned to the same hue, 
Cal, for all the life or soul in his face, might 
have been “ blocked out ” of a mountain oak. 

“ I don’t know how to thank you,” said 
Mrs. Lindsay, turning towards him, when 
with dire threats of vengeance Mam’ Patsy 
bore her nursling away to be rubbed and cod- 
dled and warmed. “ And you are all wet 
yourself ! Let me get you some dry clothes.” 

“ What fur ? ” asked Cal, whose words were 
usually slow and few. “ I ain’t hurting, but 
that young un ” — Cal paused, and gave a 
hitch to his one clay-colored suspender — 
“ ’taint ez safe ez it might be to let him go — 
fishing — alone.” 

“ He ought to be thrashed soundly for it,” 
said Fred, who had come in just after a bad 
half-hour’s search for his small brother. 

“ Ef I hadn’t been around,” continued Cal, 
making another effort at friendly warning, 
“he — he wouldn’t have got outen the river 
very easy. It’s six foot deep where he tum- 
bled in.” 

An icy thrill went through the mother’s 
heart. “ You saved his life,” she said trem- 
ulously. “ Oh, what can I do for you ? ” 


Heatherton Hall. 


27 


“’Twan’t nuthing,” said Cal, “ only you 
bean’t a-going to thrash him, be you ? ” 

“ Oh, no, no ! ” answered Mrs. Lindsay. 

“ I thought mebbe you mout,” said Cal, in 
a relieved tone. “ And he is so little and so 
pretty and peart, I wouldn’t like to hev him 
hurt.” 

“ You need not fear,” said Robbie’s mother, 
smiling at the rude tenderness of the appeal. 
“ And if you won’t change your clothes you 
must sit down by the fire and get dry, while 
I make you a nice cup of hot coffee. I can- 
not let Robbie’s kind friend catch cold.” 

Nothing loath, Cal took the chair given to 
him, and stared around him in evident ad- 
miration. 

The improvised “ kitchen ” was rather a 
cheery place with its big hearth full of blaz- 
ing logs. Mam’ Patsy’s pots and pans shining 
in the firelight, great loaves of bread baking 
in the Dutch oven, Lou and Tess slicing ham 
and gingerbread for lunch. 

“You uns got it right nice up here,” he 
said slowly to Fred. 

“Well, tolerable,” said the young head of 
the house, who was swinging his legs from 
the kitchen table. “If there is a way of 


28 


Heatherton Hall. 


getting things right mother generally can 
find it.” 

Cal nodded as he watched the busy little 
figure moving to and fro. 

“And you uns ain’t skeered no ways to 
stay up here ? ” he asked, with an odd look. 

“ Scared ! of what ? ” questioned Fred in 
return. 

Cal’s face suddenly became lifeless again. 
“ Dunno, ’less it’s the ha’nts.” 

“ Ghosts, you mean ? ” said Fred laughing. 

“ There, Tess, what did I tell you ? ” said 
Lou excitedly. “ There’s something awfully 
creepy about this house, I know. I felt it 
from the first. The place is haunted, you 
say ? ” she continued, turning to Cal. “ Oh, 
do tell us all about it ! ” 

But “telling” was not in Cal’s line. He 
shuffled uneasily under the eager gaze of 
Lou’s bright eyes. “ Dunno,” he repeated. 
“I heem say the old Heathertons walk — I 
never seen ’em.” 

“ Oh, but you’ve heard about them,” said 
Lou. “There’s some dreadful secret about 
the place, I’m sure.” 

“Dozens of ’em,” grimly assented Fred, 
with a boy’s delight in feminine fears. 


Heatherton Hall. 


29 


“ The house is old enough, goodness knows, 
to have a family skeleton in every closet. 
And I guess the old Heathertons were a 
pretty hard lot, weren’t they ? ” 

Again the curious glint came into Cal’s 
dull eyes. “ You ain’t a-knowing of ’em ? ” 
he asked. “ You ain’t enny sort of kin ? ” 

“ No, don’t know anything about them, ex- 
cept that there is a Colonel Heatherton in 
Paris who let us have the house.” 

“ That’s young Jim,” said Cal, with a nod. 
“ There war two on ’em, young Jim and 
young Joe; and old Jim, the Jedge, was their 
dad. An’ they had a split ’way back in war- 
times, and old Jim he kicked out young Joe 
neck and heels, fur wanting to jine the Kebs. 
And he never come back.” 

“ Killed ? ” asked Fred eagerly. 

“ Dunno,” answered Cal stolidly. “ Thar’s 
folks ez says he wuz, and thar’s folks ez says 
he wuzn’t. An’ thar’s folks ez says after the 
old Jedge cut him outen everything, his mind 
turned an’ he died a-calling young Joe back. 
An’ thar’s folks ez says he will never rest till 
he comes.” 

“ So it is the old Judge who f walks,’ ” said 
Fred dryly. "I am glad you told us, Cal; it 


30 


Heatherton Hall. 


will be pleasanter, in case he visits us, to know 
his name and address.” 

“An’ thar’s folks ez says,” continued Cal, 
as if he had been a wooden clock wound up 
for a certain time and had not quite run 
down, “ that thar’s been a cuss on Heather- 
ton ever since it’s been in young Jim’s hands. 
Dad says thar’s alius a cuss when ha’nts walk. 
The old place won’t sell, and won’t rent, and 
won’t do nuthing but stan’ here and dry-rot.” 

“ Can’t we lay the J udge, somehow ? ” 
asked Fred, whose eyes were twinkling with 
fun at Cal’s solemn narration. “ Pity to have 
a fine piece of property like this spoiled by 
such an unpleasant tenant. Keep your eyes 
open for a night or two, girls, and if you see 
any shadowy old gentleman patrolling the 
premises, inform him there is a live real- 
estate man on the spot ready to negotiate a 
quit claim at two per cent.” 

“Fred, Fred,” interrupted his mother, in 
gentle reproof. “ Death and the mystery be- 
yond are no subjects for jest, my son.” 

“And it’s awful to think of living in a 
house with a curse on it,” said Lou, who had 
never found Heatherton Hall altogether to 
her taste. 


Heatherton Hall. 


31 


“Let us change the curse into a blessing, 
dear/’ said Mrs. Lindsay smiling, as she 
poured out Cal’s coffee. 

“ Sin and sorrow, no doubt, have darkened 
this old home in the past; but no curse can 
touch God’s children, Lou.” 

“And then we have brought our good 
angels with us,” added Tess softly. “ They 
will keep us from all harm.” 

“ And I have father’s bulldog pistol loaded 
to the nozzle,” said practical Fred, who had 
heard that there were fiercer spirits than the 
old Judge still embodied in these mountains; 
“and I will make it bark, I tell you, at any 
ha’nt that comes fooling ’round here.” And 
as Cal drank his coffee he looked from one 
bright face to the other in dull wonder at the 
light and love and gladness that he had never 
known. 

“Dad,” he said, that evening, when he sat 
smoking his clay pipe at his father’s side, by 
the door of their old mountain cabin, “ what’s 
angels ? ” 

“ Angels ! ” said Cal senior, who was of a 
little heavier block than his son. 

“Angels,” he repeated, recalling certain 
“ pictoors ” sold by a peripatetic peddler. 


32 


Heatherton Hall. 


“All I knows of ’em is they wuz critters 
mostly head and wings.” 

“ They’ve got them up to Heatherton,” 
said Cal. 

“ They hev ! ” said his father, taking out 
his pipe. “ Did yer see ’em ? ” 

“No,” answered Cal. “But the girl said 
she had brought ’em with her, and I guess she 
hez.” 

“Jest you keep away, then,” said dad 
fiercely. “ Don’t you go fooling ’roun’ crit- 
ters like that; d’ ye hear me ? yer can’t tell 
what they’ll do to ye. Angels ! I wonder 
what these here city gals ’ll kerry ’roun’ with 
’em next ? ” 

“ She mout have ’em caged,” suggested Cal 
thoughtfully. 

“ She mout,” said dad, nodding, “ and then 
agin she moutn’t. Jest you mind what I say 
and don’t yer meddle, that’s all.” 

And then father and son smoked on in si- 
lence while the darkness fell softly around 
them, and the night breeze murmured in the 
treetops and the great mountain rose solemn 
and mist-veiled under the archway of the 
stars. 


CHAPTER III. 


J ACK-0 5 -L ANTERN". 

“Suthing’s got to be done / 5 said Mam 5 
Patsy, as she surveyed her pet nursling swad- 
dled in flannel and turpentine on the sitting- 
room sofa. “ Suthing 5 s got to be done 5 bout 
that boy before he kills hisself fur good and 
all . 55 For immersion in an ice-cold mountain 
stream had proved too much for the sturdy 
little fisherman, and Rogue Robin was re- 
covering from a three days 5 attack of croup. 
Illness always reduced him to mournful sub- 
mission, and it seemed a captive angel that 
lay in the sitting-room, where a log fire blazed 
on the hearth, and mamma dosed, and Mam 5 
Patsy watched, and the little prodigal with 
fever-flushed cheeks and starry eyes was an 
object of anxious interest to all. 

“ Don’t you skeer about dat boy, chile , 55 
said Mam 5 Patsy reassuringly to tearful Tess. 
“ He gwine to lib to eat de sheep dat grazes 
33 


34 


Jack-o'-Lantern. 


on your grave, and mine too. De Lord nebber 
takes out breaking chillun like dat. I knows 
Rogue Robin. He’s lying dar steddying up 
some new mischief now.” 

“Mam’,” said Rogue Robin, when they 
w r ere alone after one of these periods of sus- 
picious quiet, “ did Cal Jones get the croup 
too ? ” 

“ S’pect he got wuss than croup,” answered 
Mam’ Patsy grimly; “ ain’t seen him sence he 
fotched you home. You orter to bress de 
Lord you didn’t get wuss too. I tell you 
’bout fooling ’roun’ dis hyah place, you 
dunno what’s a-gwine to ketch you. Didn’t 
Miss Tess read you outen dat pictoor-book 
tu-day ’bout de boy dat climbed up er bean- 
stalk to skyland, and come near being biled 
for dinner when he got dar ? An’ you’s a heap 
higher up hyah dan any bean-stalk could 
fotch you, I kin tell you dat.” 

“Do you think there are any giants up 
here ? ” asked Robbie breathlessly. 

“Dat dere is,” said Mam’ Patsy, whose 
knowledge of giants was necessarily very lim- 
ited, but who caught an encouraging tremor 
in Robbie’s voice, “and de berry wust kind 
too.” 


Jack-O'-Lantern. 


35 


“ Has — has anybody ever seen one. Mam’ ?” 
asked her patient skeptically. 

“ ’Deed dey has,” replied Mam’ Patsy, with 
a nod, “and skeered enough dey is of him, 
too. I hears de folks talking when dey comes 
to de hack door wif dere butter and eggs and 
garden sass. Dey ain’t letting dere boys go 
skooting roun’ dese skylands all ’lone. I 
hears what dey talking ’bout under dem slab 
sunbonnets,” added Mam’ Patsy, with dark 
significance. 

“ What do they say, Mam’ ? ” asked Robbie, 
w r ho had risen from his sofa-cushions in awe- 
struck interest. 

“ All ’bout dis hyah Jack-o’-Lantern,” con- 
tinued Mam’ Patsy, getting her story-book 
names slightly mixed. 

“ Is that the giant’s name ? ” asked Robbie, 
with wide-open eyes. 

“ Dat’s his name, chile,” went on Mam’ 
Patsy, feeling she had gone too far to retreat 
now, “ and a monstrous bad name it is. Dey 
calls him Jack-o’-Lantern long ob de light he 
kerries ’roun’ ob nights a-hunting fur stray 
chillun. I’se seen it a-glimmering up on de 
rocks many a time from dat garret window ob 
mine. Not dat he don’t hunt in de daytime, 


36 


Jack-o'-Lantern. 


too,” added Mam* Patsy hastily, “but he 
hides hisself den in de bushes wif a big bag in 
his hand and waits for ’em to come.” 

“ And has he a castle and a harp, and a hen 
that lays golden eggs, like the story-book 
says ? ” asked Robbie, who had never lost his 
infantile faith in “ Mammy’s ” knowledge and 
wisdom. 

“ Got ’em all,” answered Mam’ Patsy, feel- 
ing it unwise to depart too far from story- 
book lines. “ Got ebberyting — hens and 
geese and sheep and hogs and — ebberyting. 
But he got dat mean, res’less sort ob mind, he 
ain’t satisfied nohow. Jes’ keeps a-hongering 
and a-hunting fur a boy to bile in his big 
soup-pot, like de book Miss Tess was a-read- 
ing to you says. He’s a turrible fellow, 
dis J ack-o’-Lantern, I kin tell you dat. 
Skeered him dis time,” chuckled Mam’ 
Patsy to herself as she saw the look in Rob- 
bie’s face. “ Skeered him dis time — shuah.” 

And her success was even greater than she 
dreamed, for twice that night the family were 
roused by the fevered boy’s shrieks, and 
Rogue Robin was found wide-eyed and trem- 
bling in fear of Jack-o’-Lantem and his bag. 

“ Don’t you tell him no better, Miss Nell,” 


JacJc- o' -Lantern. 


37 


warned Mam’ Patsy. “ Heap better hev him 
skeered dan drowned.” 

And Robbie’s mother, with Jhe thought of 
crag and creek before her, reluctantly ac- 
ceded to this nursery diplomacy, and the 
mythical “ Jack-o’-Lantem ” henceforth be- 
came Mam 5 Patsy’s unfailing ally with her 
restless little charge. 

Jack roamed the heights and kept stealthy 
watch by the creeks; his lantern glimmered 
down the mountain gorges, his pot “biled” 
amid the u onsatisfying ” treasures of his airy 
castle. 

Black Ben, whose bears and wolves had 
proved such inadequate terrors, took up the 
new theme with great gusto and enlarged upon 
“ J ack ” with all the young negro’s delight in 
the terrible and the unknown. Even Fred, 
when things were a little “ slow ” found it 
great fun to carry on the joke, and watch 
Pogue Robin’s brown eyes widen at the ex- 
ploits of the renowned Jack, who was credited 
with all the deeds of classical and mythologi- 
cal heroes. Golden apples grew on Jack’s 
trees, and there was a wonderful spring at 
his door that kept him always strong and 
well and young. 


38 


Jack-o'-Lantern. 


“ Won’t he ever get sick or die ? ” asked 
Robbie, with a vague hope that a constant 
diet of “ small hoy ” would prove too much 
for Jack’s digestion. 

“ Never; at least not while that spring 
lasts,” answered Fred decidedly. “ He’s about 
two or three hundred years old now and likely 
to live two or three hundred more.” 

Altogether the family coalition on Jack-o’- 
Lantern proved a strategic success, and Rogue 
Robin confined his wanderings to grove and 
garden, where he and Dickie swung in the 
pine-trees and scampered down the terraced 
walks, while the mountain breeze tossed their 
curls, and painted their cheeks, and made 
their pulses throb wfith strength and health 
and hardy young life again. 

A rough, rollicking playmate indeed was 
this mountain breeze — snatching their hats 
and sending them flying into the treetops, 
whisking off Mam’ Patsy’s snowy “ wash ” 
from bleaching-ground and line, shouting 
hoarsely over the rocks, and whistling down 
the chimneys, and teasing the little brook 
until, in a flurry of wrath, it fairly boiled 
down the hill. Many were the moods and 
antics of the mountain breeze. Sometimes it 


Jack-o 1 -Lantern. 


39 


sang such sweet lullabies in the grove that 
Dickie nodded off in the midst of his play, 
and mamma would find him fast asleep on 
the pine-needles, with the breeze softly fan- 
ning his brow. Sometimes it would sulk far 
up on the heights in the noontide stillness, 
and then would burst forth in fierce fury, ter- 
rible to hear and see. For the trees would 
bend and shiver, and windows shake, and 
door's rattle, and a thunder of falling rocks 
and rending boughs would echo through the 
woods, while the poor little brook would leap 
away in a very foam of fright. And then like 
a naughty child the breeze would begin to 
sob penitently, and the sun would break out 
through the black, frowning storm-clouds, 
and a rainbow span the mountain, and Dickie, 
running out to see it, would find his playmate 
merrily shaking the rain-drops from the 
pines as if nothing at all unpleasant had 
occurred. 

Then, too, besides the breeze, there was the 
mountain mist with its vagaries. At first it 
was rather a startling experience to awake in 
the morning and find the world had alto- 
gether disappeared and Heatherton Hall was 
apparently adrift in the clouds without pilot 


40 


Jack-o 1 -Lantern. 


or rudder. But after one or two alarms the 
children got used to the tricks of the mist. 
Tess in particular loved to stand at her high 
dormer-window and watch the white cloud- 
sea shimmer into pink and gold, while peak 
and treetop and rock gradually rose out of 
its depths, until, as if it had snatched a veil 
from its face, the mountain was laughing in 
the glory of the sunrise. 

“ It’s lovely to see so far, isn’t it ? ” said 
Tess one morning, as she looked across miles 
and miles of waving greenery and saw the 
white thread of smoke left by the far-off 
train sweeping on its dizzy way. 

“ I don’t know,” answered Lou. “ I think 
I’d rather see just across the street. Of 
course we had to come here for Dickie’s sake, 
and it has done him lots of good, but I’m dead 
homesick sometimes, Tess.” 

“ Homesick ! ” echoed Tess wonderingly. 
“ Why, isn’t this home now, Lou ? ” 

“No, it isn’t,” answered Lou decidedly. 
“Thank Heaven, too, for I don’t want any 
such great barn with a dead Judge walking 
around it for my home. And the girls are 
having such lovely times in town. Cal Jones 
brought me a long letter from Grade Dorr 


Jack-O'-Lantern. 


41 


last night. It had been a week at Roxton. 
Nobody knew who we were or what we were, 
until Cal went down and Fred told him to 
ask at the post-office if there were any letters 
for Heatherton Hall. You know papa sends 
his to the other office, and they let a boy bring 
them up twice a week. But Grade did not 
know that.” 

“ And, oh, what did the letter say, Lou ? ” 
asked Tess eagerly. 

“ Oh ! lots of things,” sighed Lou. 
“ Father John has had a festival, and all the 
girls went and wore their commencement 
dresses, and had the loveliest sort of time. 
And Janet is going to the seashore and has 
lots of new clothes and is awfully stuck up. 
And all our crowd met at Fan Wylie’s the 
other night and made caramels. And Grade’s 
Aunt Mollie has gone to the convent.” 

“ Oh, has she ? ” interrupted Tess. “ The 
pretty one with golden hair, that was so full 
of fun ? ” 

“Yes, that’s the kind that always goes,” 
said Lou. “I never saw a long-faced nun, 
did you ? If you keep on chirping about 
everything as you do now, you’ll land in a 
convent yourself, miss, see if you don’t,” con- 


42 


Jack-O'-Lantern. 


eluded Lou with a nod of solemn warning. 
“ It doesn’t stir your soul a bit to think of 
our white swiss dresses folded away up-stairs 
with never a chance to shake out a ruffle.” 

“ No, it doesn’t,” said Tess, laughing. 

“ Nor of Fan Wylie’s birthday party we are 
going to miss,” continued Lou; “ and Grade 
says she is going to have the ice-cream in 
moulds, and a black waiter. And here we are 
with no stores, no company, no church — 
nothing. We might as well he in a heathen 
land at once.” 

“ That is true,” said Tess thoughtfully. 
“ It seems as if we ought to do something, 
Lou. Be sort of missionaries, you know.” 

“ Missionaries ! ” said Lou, staring. 

“ Don’t you remember when Sister Angela 
read us about Father Breboeuf ? ” 

“ Ugh, yes ! ” said Lou, with a shiver. 
“ Don’t talk about it, Tess, it makes my flesh 
creep. Oh, I’d never make a martyr, I know. 
I’d break right down when it came to hot 
irons and knives.” 

"Well, you know Sister Angela said we 
would never he called upon to suffer things 
like that, but we all might be little mission- 
aries in other ways. She said we had our 


Jack-O'-Lantern. 


43 


little brothers and sisters and servants to 
teach by word and example. And don’t yon 
remember, Lou, the copy she set on the 
blackboard that day : ‘ So let your light 
shine before men that, seeing it, they may 
glorify your Father who is in heaven ’ ? And 
here we are at heaven’s door almost,” and 
Tess looked up to the arching skies, “ and 
heathens around us who scarcely know God’s 
holy name. Lou, it seems as if somehow we 
ought to make our light shine here.” 

“We might have a Sunday-school,” sug- 
gested Lou, evidently impressed by her 
sister’s sweet earnestness. “ But I don’t think 
any one up here knows when Sunday comes. 
If mamma did not gather us all for Mass- 
prayers I would forget, myself.” 

“We might call it singing-school,” said 
Tessie; “ you have such a lovely voice, Lou. 
I know these poor children never heard any- 
thing like it. And I am sure mamma would 
let me make some ginger cookies for them, 
and then we could tell stories in the garden 
afterwards — true stories, you know, about 
Our Lord and His Blessed Mother. I think 
if we make it very pleasant they will like to 
come.” 


44 


Jack-o'-Lantern. 


“ But how can we send word to them ? We 
don’t know their names/’ asked Lou, quite 
waking up to interest in Tess’s plan. 

“We know Cal Jones,” answered Tess, “and 
there’s little Nan Dobbins, that brings the 
milk every day, and that funny little Madge, 
that comes twice a week with butter and eggs. 
We could ask them and tell them to bring 
the rest. Oh, let us go ask mamma about it.” 
And both girls tripped down to their mother 
to find the sweet sympathy they expected, 
leavened with a little smiling doubt to which 
she gave no words. 


CHAPTER IV. 


LIGHT AND SHADOW. 

“There,” said Tess as she filled up the 
sixth plate of cookies and set them on the side 
table, “ I think that will be enough, Lou. We 
want half a dozen more chairs; bring them 
out of the dining-room, Fred, that ? s a dear 
boy, while I run up-stairs for the music-book. 
The old melodeon is a little squeaky, but 
mamma says if we play softly it will sound 
right well.” 

Very festal indeed looked the big parlor as 
it stood prepared for the “ singing-school .” 
The six windows were thrown open to the 
sunshine, the queer Chinese vases were filled 
with fresh flowers, the great chimney-place 
was made into a very Christmas bower with 
pine boughs, while the old Heatherton 
portraits blinked down wonderingly from the 
walls on the unaccustomed scene. 

“When does this ‘'revival/ or whatever it 
may be termed, begin ? ” asked Fred, seating 
45 


46 


Light and Shadow. 


himself astride a chair and helping himself 
liberally to cookies. 

“ Just as soon as the children come. And 
oh, Fred, don’t make fun, please.” 

“ Who is making fun ? ” asked Fred. “ I 
am as solemn as the Judge himself. I tell you 
the old gentleman is around, girls. I heard 
him last night.” 

“ Where ? ” gasped Lou excitedly. 

“ Now, Fred, you know you are talking 
nonsense,” said wiser Tess reproachfully. 

“ I think he was in the library,” continued 
Fred, his eyes twinkling. “ There was the 
tap , tap , tap of a ghostly cane up and down 
the floor, as if the old gentleman were trou- 
bled in his mind and walking it off. Perhaps 
he has heard that the moonshiners are back 
on the Ridge.” 

“ What are the moonshiners ? ” asked both 
girls eagerly. 

“ Moonshiners, my innocents,” said Fred, 
who, as the eldest of the family, was thor- 
oughly imbued with a sense of his own su- 
perior worldly knowledge — “ moonshiners are 
gentlemen who do business by moonlight.” 

“ What kind of business ? ” asked Lou with 
wide-open eyes. 


Light and Shadoiv. 


47 


“ Various sorts,” answered Fred evasively. 
“ And as they have a preference for doing it 
in their own way and not according to Uncle 
Sam’s laws, he is down on them — or rather 
np after them — whenever he hears they are at 
work. Colonel Heatherton, who was sheriff, 
routed them off the Ridge about six years 
ago. Old Squire White told me about it 
when I was over at his place yesterday. He 
says they had a big fight up on the rocks, and 
there were two men killed and about half a 
dozen captured. The Squire says they are 
back again, he understands, with a fierce old 
outlaw at their head, who swears he will hold 
that Ridge against Jim Heatherton until one 
or the other of them drops dead. Amiable 
sort of neighbors to have,” added Fred 
grimly. 

“ Oh, let us go home right away ! ” said 
Lou, her face blanching. “ I am afraid to stay 
here another night. The moonshiners may 
come after us.” 

“ Ho danger,” answered Fred coolly. “ We 
have done nothing to them. They may have 
a grudge against the Colonel, but he is safe in 
Paris, and we are not going to trouble them, 
I am sure, if they moonshine the whole sum- 


48 


Light and Shadow. 


mer through. Besides, we’ve taken the place 
for three months and can’t go back on onr 
bargain. Look out, Tess; here comes your 
Sunday-school. I’m off ! ” and Fred made a 
handspring over the chairs to the nearest 
door. But it was only Cal, who, with his clay- 
colored locks soaped into submission and two 
suspenders on, stood staring doubtfully into 
the parlor. 

“ Come in, Cal,” said Tess, fluttering for- 
ward to meet him, “ I am so glad to see you. 
Where are the rest ? ” 

“ Wouldn’t come,” answered Cal briefly. 

“ What, none of them ? ” exclaimed Tess in 
dismay. 

“ Nary un,” replied Cal, with a gloomy 
stare at the opposite wall. 

“ Did you ask them ? ” asked Lou. 

“Yes,” answered Cal, “I tole ’em, and I 
hed ter lick three of ’em fur saying I was ly- 
ing, and the rest of ’em — their dads wouldn’t 
let ’em come.” 

“ But why not ? ” asked Tess in wonder. 

“Dunno,” answered Cal, not a vestige of 
expression in his face. 

“ There ! what did I tell you, Tess ? ” said 
Lou with mingled triumph and indignation. 


Light and Shadow. 


49 


“ After we nearly burned our skins off yester- 
day baking cakes for the little wretches ! It’s 
the first and last time Pll ever bother either 
about their souls or bodies, I know.” 

And Lou flounced wrathfully to report the 
dead failure of the “ mission” to mamma, 
leaving Tess standing ruefully by her one re- 
cruit — poor, dull, blank-faced Cal. But had 
not Sister Angela taught her of the Shepherd 
who went over rocks and wilds for one lost 
sheep ? 

“I am glad you came, anyhow, Cal,” she 
said brightly. 

“ Reckon my dad will thrash me fur it, too, 
but I don’t keer,” said Cal. “ I come fur to 
sing. I Icin sing first-rate.” 

Tess had to draw down the corners of her 
mouth to keep back the smile. 

“ That is good,” she said. “ What can you 
sing, Cal ? ” 

“ ’Mos’ anything,” he answered with the 
calm assurance of an operatic star, “ least- 
ways anything you kin strike up.” 

With her pretty lips still a-quiver with the 
laugh Cal must not see, Tess took her seat at 
the old melodeon. 

She had not Lou’s rich gift of song, only 


50 


Light and Shadow. 


a sweet little birdlike soprano, that was usu- 
ally almost lost in her sister’s fuller notes. 

But Lou had abandoned the missionary 
field, so Tess must do her best alone. 

Turning over the music to her favorite 
“ Fading, still fading,” she began her “ little 
pipe,” as Fred teasingly called it. 

But scarcely had she finished the first verse, 
when a rich, deep tenor took up the strain. 
Was it Cal singing ? Poor Cal with his clay- 
colored face and dull eyes and wooden feat- 
ures ? Cal who -was pouring forth that word- 
less melody, strong and sweet as an organ’s 
swell ? For a moment Tess was struck almost 
dumb with surprise, then she took breath 
again and sang as she had never sung before, 
for that deep voice seemed to upbear hers as 
the great ocean wave upbears its silvery crest. 

“ Fading, still fading, 

The last beam is shining, 

Ave Maria ! 

Day is declining ; 

Safety and innocence, 

Fly with the light, 

Temptation and danger 
Walk forth in the night." 

“ Oh, Cal ! ” said Tess, whirling round 


Light and Shadow. 


51 


rapturously on the creaky music-stool, “you 
can sing indeed ! I don’t think I ever heard 
such a beautiful voice. Where did you learn ? 
how did you learn to sing like that ? ” 

“Dunno,” answered Cal; “jest alius could 
do it, somehow. That’s a fine tune, too. Kin 
strike the tune all right, but ain’t much on 
ketching words. What is them walked forth 
in the night ? ” 

“ Temptation and danger,” answered Tess, 
smiling. 

“ Wuz they girls or boys ? ” asked Cal. 

“ Oh, neither,” said Tess, laughing out- 
right. 

“ Critters, then, maybe,” said Cal slowly. 

“ Oh, no, no ! Did you never hear of temp- 
tation ? It means something or somebody 
that tries to make you do wrong.” 

“Moonshiners, mebbe,” said Cal, with the 
odd gleam that sometimes flashed into his dull 
eyes. “ Though if folks don’t bother them, 
they won’t bother folks. But they’se got a 
grudge ’gin Jim Heatherton — a grudge that’s 
pisen-strong, I tell yer that. Thar’s lots on 
’em up yon ” — Cal motioned towards the 
mountain-tops — “ that’s skeered to come nigh 
this ’ere house.” 


52 


Light and Shadow . 


“ Why ? ” asked Tess wonderingly. 

“Dunno,” answered Cal. “ Feared the old 
‘ fox/ nz they call Jim Heatherton, is laying 
wait for ’em agin, and you uns is jest here to 
hide his tracks.” 

“ What foolish people,” laughed Tess, 
“when Colonel Heatherton is in Paris, and 
we never saw him in our lives ! ” 

“ You needn’t ter want to,” said Cal. “’Cos 
if he were to come ’round, folks up yon mout 
get ugly. Thar’s old Meg Watkins, that hed 
her hoys both killed last fight — she ain’t fur- 
getting that; and Mick Fitch, wot is got two 
hoys in jail now; and thar’s lots more jest 
hiling over with hate and grudge ’gin Jim 
Heatherton and swearing they’ll git even 
with him yet.” 

“ Oh, I don’t like to hear about hates and 
grudges and fights,” sighed Tess, feeling as 
if this missionary field were quite beyond her 
reach. “It is all so wicked. But I sup- 
pose the poor people never had any one to 
teach them better.” 

“Thar’s a school down ter Roxton,” said Cak 
“Bud Watkins went thar two sessions. Old 
Meg she got so fierce after his dad was killed, 
that Bud cut off and went down ter Roxton- 


Light and Shadcnv. 


53 


to work. And he got ter school ’twixt whiles, 
and larned lots — figooring and reading, and 
I heern he did say he could write his name, 
but I reckon that was jest brag. But he 
larned so much, ennyhow, that he went off, 
and Meg didn’t get no more good outen him. 
Dad says that’s wot laming does — makes 
folks sassy and lazy and good fur nothing at 
all.” 

“ And — and — do you mean that no one up 
here can read or write or do anything ? ” ex- 
claimed Tess, almost dumb with pity and dis- 
may. “ Oh, Cal, this is dreadful ! Wouldn’t 
you like to learn ? Won’t you let me teach 
you, Cal ? ” 

“ Kin you ? ” he asked, staring at the 
pretty little speaker in wonder. 

“Why, of course I can!” she answered 

gayiy- 

“ Real, rig’lar schoolmarm teaching P ” he 
asked again, in a tone of doubt. 

“ Regular schoolmarm,” affirmed Tess, with 
a decided nod. “ Just try me. Come to-mor- 
row and we will begin.” 

“ You bet I will ! ” said Cal, and the dull 
glow that kindled his face spoke louder than 
words of his delight at the chance. “ I ain’t 


54 


Light and Shadoiv. 


skeering, not if ole Meg screeches her spells 
after me every day. I’ll come if dad thrashes 
me fur it.” 

And thereafter Cal did come “rigdar.” 
What social or domestic persecution it 
brought upon him he never told, though 
more than once a black eye or a bruised head 
showed that the path of knowledge had its 
perils for him. 

Mrs. Lindsay, who could never forget the 
mother debt she owed the rough young 
mountaineer, made no objection to Tess’s 
scholar, and every afternoon the two could 
be seen seated on the garden terrace. Cal plod- 
ding laboriously through the mysteries of 
Robbie’s primer, under his young teacher’s 
earnest guidance. 

It was slow work. Cal, who knew the leaf 
of every mountain tree, the song of every 
mountain bird, found the queer signs that 
stand for human thought and human speech 
altogether bewildering, while Tess, who had 
read ever since she could remember, could not 
understand the blank stare with which her 
pupil, after all her efforts, confronted the 
printed page. “Ba, be, bi, bo, bu” were 
after a while triumphantly mastered; then 


Light and Shadow. 55 

came abstrusities for which Tess was not pre- 
pared. 

“ Now, b-o-y. What does that spell, Cal ? ” 
asked the little teacher encouragingly. 

“B-o, bo,” answered Cal confidently, sur- 
veying the familiar combination. 

“ Oh, no, Cal. B-o-y ? ” asked Tess again. 

“ You’ve been a-telling me b-o were bo. I 
wuz saying it all last night so I wouldn’t fur- 
get,” said Cal, with a touch of reproach in his 
tone. 

“ But this is b-o-y,” said Tess. “ Put a y 
to it, Cal. Don’t you see ? just a y 99 

“ B-o, bo,” spelled Cal again. “ Wy — bo — 
wy. It don’t appear to hitch right.” 

And Tess would make another effort to ex- 
plain the mysteries of pronunciation, and Cal 
would stare at his “ b-o, bo,” more hopelessly 
than before. 

But if letters did not “ hitch right,” the 
little teacher’s stories were complete successes. 
After the daily struggle with refractory 
sounds and syllables Cal would fling himself 
comfortably down upon the grassy terrace at 
Tess’s feet, and then, while the birds sang 
overhead and the little stream rippled and 
foamed merrily beside them, lessons were 


56 Light and Shadow . 

given that reached far deeper than the 
primer’s. 

For the first time Cal learned of Our 
Father in heaven. His care and His love; of 
the little Babe of Bethlehem; of the gentle 
Boy of Nazareth; the divine Master who 
walked the hills and waves of Galilee. 

Tess had brought her hard-won Christian 
Doctrine prize with her — a beautiful Bible 
History profusely illustrated — and “ pietoors” 
that Cal could understand verified her words. 
And as the boy looked and listened, his dull 
eyes kindled and the heavy wooden features 
seemed to break into softer lines. The Light 
was dawning for Cal — slowly indeed, but 
surety — as the heavy August mist that veiled 
the mountain flushed faintly under Tess’s 
window with the rosy glow of the unseen sun. 


CHAPTER V. 


A FRIENDLY GHOST. 

The mountain was in its midsummer 
bloom. Tangles of flowering vines hid the 
frow r n of the cliffs, the gray, jagged rocks 
were feathered with hardy blossoms, and 
high up in the trees the trumpet-flowers 
blazed in crimson and gold. 

“ Oh, I must have some of them ! ” said 
Lou, who was making an herbarium that had 
relieved the ennui of her mountain exile won- 
derfully. Gentle Sister Angela had suggested 
to her scattered pupils this method of im- 
proving their summer holiday. Each little 
classmate was to make a collection of the 
flowers, ferns, or seaweed within her reach, 
and the specimens were to be bound hand- 
somely for exhibition in the convent museum. 

“ I must have a spray of those lovely 
trumpet-flowers before a wind scatters them/’ 
said the enthusiastic little botanist. “ Come, 
57 


58 


A Friendly Ghost. 


Eogue Robin, let ns go up the mountain-path 
and get some of those pretty red flowers.” 

“You’d better not,” said Rogue Robin, 
gravely shaking his curly head. “ They are 
Jack-o’-Lantern’s flowers. ManT says so.” 

“ Oh, pshaw ! I an not afraid of Jack-o’- 
Lantern. Come on,” answered Lou. 

“ Doesn’t he catch girls ? ” asked Rogue. 

“ Never,” replied his sister positively. 
“ And he won’t catch you either while I am 
with you. So come along, and climb the tree 
for me. I am afraid the flowers are too high 
for me to reach.” And nothing loath, the 
small prodigal, who had grown rather weary 
of the narrow bounds enforced by the dreaded 
Jack, put his chubby hand in his sister’s, and 
they began to ascend the mountain path. 

“Wouldn’t you be afraid if you saw Jack- 
o’-Lantern, Lou?” he asked, evidently pon- 
dering still on the perplexing question. 

“Not a bit,” was his sister’s reply. 

“ What — what would you say to him ? ” 
continued the questioner breathlessly. 

“ I’d say, ( Good-evening, Mr. Jack. I’ve 
come to get some of your pretty flowers,’ ” 
answered Lou gayly. 

There was another pause. Rogue Robin 


A Friendly Ghost. 


59 


seemed striving to reconcile this feminine 
recklessness with his previous estimate of his 
sister’s character. 

“ You were awfully scared when that cater- 
pillar got on your neck yesterday,” he said. 

“ Ugh ! yes. I nearly fainted,” acknowl- 
edged Lou. 

“And you jump on the table and scream 
whenever a mouse runs out of his hole,” con- 
tinued Robbie. 

“ Of course I do. Who wouldn’t ? ” queried 
his sister. 

“Jack-o’-Lantern is a heap worse than 
mice or caterpillars,” said Rogue Robin. 
“ Black Ben says so. Black Ben says if he 
were to see him he guessed he’d be so scared 
he would turn white.” 

“Then if I were Black Ben I’d see him 
as quickly as possible,” laughed Lou, “ for it’s 
a great deal nicer to be white than black.” 

And so encouraging was Lou’s cheerfulness 
that Rogue Robin began to look about him 
less fearfully, and soon the charms of the 
mountain almost dispelled the terrors of the 
mysterious Jack. For not only were there 
flowers galore on every side, but the great 
knotted vines swinging from tree to tree were 


60 


A Friendly Ghost. 


already laden with purpling grapes, and 
mountain-plums were ripening in hidden hol- 
lows, while half -wreathed by a scarlet Vir- 
ginia creeper was a great old hollow trunk 
filled to the very roots with golden honey- 
comb that the bees must have been storing 
there for years. And everywhere was the 
merry mountain breeze rustling the leaves, 
and swinging the vines, and swaying the blos- 
soms, and whispering mischief in Rogue 
Robin’s ear as it tossed his curls. “ Higher,” 
it seemed to coax — “ higher, little playmate, 
higher ! See how the sunlight dances on 
those far-off peaks; hear 'how the waterfall 
laughs as it leaps down the rocks ! Much 
more can I show you up there — much more. 
Come and see, little playmate; come and see.” 
And what Rogue Robin, who had been good 
for six long weeks, might have answered to 
that naughty truant-call we cannot say, if 
Lou had not been there to guard. 

“ Come, Robbie,” she said at last; “ see, the 
sun is near its setting. We must go home.” 

And taking his hand, she led him safe 
through the enchanted path again. But alas 
for Mam’ Patsy’s care ! Jack-o’-Lantern had 
lost half his terrors for the little wanderer, and 


A Friendly Ghost. 


61 


Rogue Robin had heard the Call of the moun- 
tain, that would echo henceforth in his 
thoughts and in his dreams day and night. 

The dusk had already gathered under the 
pines when Lou and her little companion 
reached home. Rogue Robin bounded into 
the house to show Dickie his mountain treas- 
ures, while his sister seated herself on the gar- 
den terrace to arrange her wealth of flowers. 

It was one of those beautiful vesper hours 
when the earth seems to swing close to heaven 
and catch something of its blessedness and 
peace. The west flamed with the gorgeous 
colors of some great cathedral window; faint 
mist floated like incense from the valley be- 
low, while the one pale star that trembled 
above the mountain seemed gleaming in the 
violet shadows like a sanctuary lamp. And 
as Lou, weary after her long ramble, sat with 
her hands folded over her flowers, a rich 
strain of music came through the open parlor 
window. Cal’s lesson over, he and his little 
teacher were singing in the gathering twi- 
light. 


“ Ave Sanctissima ! 

We lift our souls to thee, 


62 


A Friendly Ghost . 


rose in Tess’s silvery soprano, while CaPs deep 
tenor chimed in wordless notes, and from her 
seat on the terrace Lou joined the refrain, till 
the whole garden was pulsing and thrilling 
with harmony that to an unseen watcher who 
stood listening near seemed a greeting from 
heaven itself. 

The glow had faded from the west when 
the hymn was finished, and with her arms full 
of flowers Lou rose to return to the house, 
when her heart gave a wild leap and then 
seemed to stand still. 

For there close beside her, under the one 
great oak that the storms had left on the 
terrace, stood a tall shadowy figure with the 
pale, grave face, the deep-set eyes of the full- 
length portrait that hung in the great hall. 

With a wild shriek of terror she sprang 
past the ghostly visitant to the house. “ The 
J udge ! ” she gasped, bursting into the family 
group assembled in the sitting-room. “ Oh, 
the J udge ! the J udge ! Mamma, I have seen 
him — I have seen him ! ” 

“ My dear, my dear, what nonsense ! ” said 
Mrs. Lindsay soothingly, as she took the 
trembling girl in her arms. “ It was only a 
fancy, a twilight shadow.” 


A Friendly Ghost. 


63 


“ Oh, no, no, no ! ” sobbed Lou. “ I saw 
him as plainly as I see you.” 

“ Where ? when ? ” cried the other chil- 
dren in excited chorus. 

“ Oh, there, there ! ” shrieked Lou again, 
pointing to the shadowy figure in the open 
doorway. 

“ My dear child,” said a deep voice that 
somehow calmed the tumult, it was so human 
and so kind, “ I am truly sorry to have 
frightened you. Pardon my intrusion, madam, 
but I saw your little girks terror, and felt I 
must follow her and explain my presence. I 
was passing the road below, and stopped to 
look at this old house, which I believed to be 
unoccupied, when your beautiful vesper 
hymn held me spellbound. My dear chil- 
dren, I am no very terrible ogre, only an old 
missionary priest — Father Xavier, who would, 
bless instead of harm you.” 

“ A priest ! ” exclaimed Mrs. Lindsay. 
“ Then indeed you are a welcome visitor, 
father. You must forgive these young people 
of mine their foolish fears, but they have 
heard so much of the ghosts that haunt 
Heatherton Hall that they have grown a little 
fanciful and nervous.” 


64 


A Friendly Ghost. 


“ Shake hands, then, and he sure that I am 
solid flesh and blood,” said Father Xavier as 
he extended his hand first to one and then 
to another of the family group. 

“ Ah, my children, you need not fear the 
dead. They are in God’s keeping and subject 
in all things to His holy will. Though, as we 
older people know, dear madam, all of us are 
ghosts in a way — the ghosts of our dead selves. 
I feel very much like such a ghost to-night. 
Is it possible that I find Catholics in posses- 
sion of Heatherton Hall ? ” 

“ Only temporarily, father,” answered Mrs. 
Lindsay. "We are spending the summer 
here for the benefit of our little one’s health. 
And we must claim you as our guest for to- 
night, at least, for it is late and you must be 
far from home.” 

" Home ? ” echoed Father Xavier, with a 
sad smile. “ That word has no earthly mean- 
ing for the missionary, my child. But if you 
will kindly give me and my good horse, who 
stands in the road without, shelter for the 
night I will be grateful, as I am fully twenty 
miles from my headquarters — Father Stone’s, 
at Pinesville. I returned about a month ago, 
after long years of service abroad, and was 


A Friendly Ghost. 


65 


ordered up into the mountains to recuperate. 
Meanwhile, by my superior’s permission, I am 
doing a little missionary work in out-of-the- 
way corners, just to keep my hand in,” said 
Father Xavier, with his grave, kind smile. “ I 
scarcely expected that work would lead me 
into such pleasant company as this,” he added, 
as he took his seat in the big armchair which 
Fred rolled out for him, while Black Ben 
went out at Mrs. Lindsay’s bidding to get his 
horse, and the children gathered around, shy 
yet delighted at the unwonted presence 
among them. 

“ Goodness knows we need a missionary up 
here,” said Tess, whose one mountain sheep 
had taken rapid flight at sight of the new- 
comer. 

“ Tess has been trying it, and speaks from 
sad experience,” said Fred teasingly. “ How 
many pounds of ginger-cakes does it take to 
catch one mountaineer, Tess ? She has got 
the thing down to a fraction, father; ask her 
about it.” 

“Ah, but I am only a girl,” said Tess, 
blushing, but untroubled by her brother’s 
chaffing, “ and girls cannot do much.” 

“ Only a girl ! ” echoed Father Xavier. 


66 


A Friendly Ghost. 


“ But so was the little maid J eanne who led 
the armies of France, my child. So was the 
little Bernadette, whose voice gave the world 
Lourdes with all its holy beauties and won- 
ders. So were Agnes and Cecilia and Agatha 
and thousands of others whose names the 
Church honors. And so was She, the purest, 
the holiest of all, whose praises I heard you 
singing to-night. Only a girl ! Ah, my 
child, girls have done much in this world of 
ours. If they knew the power of their gen- 
tleness they could do more, far more.” 

“Not up here, father,” said Fred, the in- 
corrigible; “ Tess did all she could. Half a 
peck of ginger-cakes and a cracked melodeon 
were held forth as attractions, but the 
heathen of these mountains look darkly upon 
us, and evidently suspected a trap.” 

“And yet I understand that some of the 
lawless characters up in the heights are by 
birth and doubtless baptism Catholics,” said 
Father Xavier. “ It was this information 
that led me through this part of the moun- 
tain region on a tour of investigation. I 
thought if we could establish a station some- 
where in the locality these outlaws might be 
attracted, and perhaps some spark of faith' 


A Friendly Ghost. 


67 


lingering in their souls kindled into life 
again. But so far I must say my inquiries 
have resulted in nothing but discouragement. 
No one seems to know what Catholic means. 
I am met by a blank stare of either bewilder- 
ment or fear.” 

“ We know that c blank stare/ ” laughed 
Bred. “ It’s the local expression, father. 
There’s more behind it than you think. These 
fellows stare at you like a tailor’s dummy, 
with the Old Nick at work in their hearts. 
Oh, they’re a fine set of rascals up on the 
Ridge ! You might as well try to Christian- 
ize cannibals.” 

“ I have tried that, too,” said Father 
Xavier, smiling, “ and with some success, my 
boy, though several times I came very near 
winning the martyr’s crown. But I was not 
to be so blessed; each time some of my faith- 
ful natives crept up in the darkness and broke 
my thongs, and as my life was not my own, 
but my Master’s, I had to value it in His 
name.” 

“ Oh, father, tell us all about it ! ” pleaded 
an eager chorus; and then, as Black Ben piled 
the logs on the hearth and struck them into 
the blaze the chilling evenings now de- 


68 


A Friendly Ghost. 


manded, the children gathered around Father 
Xavier’s chair and listened with breathless 
interest to his stories of life in those far-off 
Pacific isles where for twenty years his lot 
had been cast. Stories as wonderful and 
beautiful as any they had ever read in books: 
of wanderings in strange tropical forests, and 
hair-breadth escapes from savage captors; 
daring journeys through hostile lands; hiding 
amid rocks and swamps; Masses said in ocean 
caverns, and sweet miracles of grace wrought 
in breasts that seemed scarcely human in 
their ferocity, until God touched them, and 
these barbarians became submissive as little 
children to His word and will. 

And when Father Xavier told of the first- 
communion day of his dark-skinned flock, 
when the little bark chapel was carpeted with 
woven blossoms, and the two rival chiefs 
whose fierce warfare had decimated the little 
island knelt hand in hand and vowed peace 
and good-will before their new-found God, 
Tess could restrain her enthusiasm no 
longer. 

“ Oh, father,” she said with flushed cheeks 
and sparkling eyes, “ why couldn’t we do 
something like that up here ? We could have 


A Friendly Ghost. 


69 


Mass right in this house. It would be so 
lovely; and even if no one else came — ” 

“ Our Lord would find one loving little 
heart, I am sure,” concluded Father Xavier, 
his eyes resting on the pretty, eager face. 
“ If your good mother wishes it, I do not 
know anything that would give me greater 
happiness than to say Mass in this house.” 

“We would all be delighted, father,” said 
Mrs. Lindsay, “ but I fear it would be impos- 
sible to obtain what is necessary in a wilder- 
ness like this.” 

“ Leave that to an old missionary,” said 
Father Xavier, smiling. “ I will make all ar- 
rangements ; and if w r e cannot bring the 
sheep from the wilderness, at least there will 
be the ‘ ninety-nine in the fold/ ” 

And so it w'as settled. And when, his 
pleasant visit over. Father Xavier bade them 
good-by next morning, he told them to ex- 
pect him back in a w r eek or ten days at most. 

“ Pretty clever sort of ghost that you raised 
last night, Lou,” said Fred as they all stood 
on the broken porch and watched their guest 
ride away through the pines. “ Though, by 
George! when you look at him hard there is a 
likeness to the family spook. When he stood 


70 


A Friendly Ghost. 


under the portrait in the hall this morning 
giving us his blessing, you could almost have 
fancied the old Judge had put on a Roman 
collar and stepped down from his frame.” 

“ I don’t see a bit of likeness/’ said Tess 
indignantly. “ Father Xavier looks like a 
saint.” And every one agreed with her. 


CHAPTER VI. 


A TEIP TO ROXTON". 

“ Off for Roxton ! ” shouted Fred through 
the broad hall. “Mother, Tess, Lou, any 
more orders ? Speak now, or for the next 
two weeks hold your peace.” 

For Squire White’s big Avagon, that twice 
a month lumbered across the mountain side, 
and with rustic courtesy rolled three miles 
out of its way to pass Heatherton Hall, was 
at the gate with Lem White in the driver's 
seat; while wicker crates of quacking and 
clucking poultry, kegs of butter, jars of 
honey, barrels of early apples, boxes of 
peaches and melons were heaped promiscu- 
ously behind him. The White farm was far 
down the west mountain side, its fertile fields 
stretching low into the river valley; but the 
Squire’s boats came to Roxton wharves, and 
the Roxton store was the trading-place of all 
71 


72 


A Trip to Roxton. 


the mountains, hence the semi-monthly con- 
nections between farm and town. A fat, 
ruddy, jolly old farmer was Squire White, 
whose keen, twinkling eyes, it was whispered, 
had blinked good-humoredly at many things 
it behooves a justice of the peace to investi- 
gate. But “ taming the mountain ” the 
Squire felt, required a stronger hand than his, 
so he made the best of things, and let his wild 
neighbors “ gang their ain gait ” untroubled. 

Two of his boys were making their own 
way in the world; the third, Lem, a hardy, 
long-limbed fellow of sixteen, was still at 
home, his father's right-hand man in every- 
thing. 

Fred, who had found weeks of fishing and 
lounging about Heatherton rather tiresome, 
had struck up a long-distance friendship with 
Lem; and despite the five miles between the 
places tramped frequently down to White’s, 
where Lem, though too busy about farm and 
stables to be much of a boon companion, al- 
ways welcomed the bright city youth cor- 
dially. 

The fortnightly trip to Roxton was there- 
fore a gala day to both; for Lem, attired in 
store clothes, with a trusted son’s control over 


A Trip to JRoxton. 


73 


the day’s sales and purchases, was a very im- 
portant person indeed. 

“ Last call ! ” shouted Fred. " Any more 
orders ? ” 

" Don’t forget my embroidery cotton, Fred, 
please,” called Tess anxiously, " and three 
papers of needles.” 

" And my letter-paper, lavender color, if 
you can, Fred, just like Grade’s, you know.” 

" Monogram and crest for twenty-five cents 
a box,” said Fred grimly. "All right, if it 
can be found in Roxton; though my remem- 
brance of the stationery is a pile of fly- 
specked commercial cap and six packages of 
yellow envelopes; anything else ? ” 

" I gave you my ten cents for a ball; don’t 
you forget it,” called Rogue Robin from the 
head of the steps. 

" And mamma says bring me a balloon, 
Fred,” piped Dickie. 

"And you’ve got the grocery order, dear, 
and Robbie’s shoe, and the sample of flannel,” 
said his mother. 

"Yes, yes,” laughed Fred, feeling there 
were disadvantages in being head of the 
family. " It’s more than one brain will carry, 
but I’ve got a memorandum, so good-by, 


74 


A Trip to Roxton. 


mother dear, and don’t worry if I am a little 
late, for Lem says we may have to wait for 
the Squire’s boat to come in, with his new 
cutting machine.” 

And kissing his mother and sisters, Fred 
sprang to the seat beside Lem, and the big 
wagon lumbered slowly away. 

The summer was nearly gone; already there 
was a chilly touch in the evening air that 
made great log fires snapping on the hearth 
pleasant to look upon; the trees had begun to 
trick themselves out in autumn finery of 
crimson and gold; while high upon the rock 
the sumach flaunted its red leaves and berries 
like a conquering flag. 

“ It’s my last trip, I guess, with you, Lem, 
old fellow,” said Fred. “ We leave the first of 
September.” 

“ Sorry to hear it,” answered Lem. “ I’ll 
miss you lots. But I reckon you’ll be glad 
enough to get back to town. It’s slow up here 
for you.” 

“ Well, yes,” answered Fred frankly. 
“ Still I’ve had a first-rate time in a quiet 
way.” 

“ We ain’t so quiet up here always,” said 
Lem, flecking his horses into a trot as they 


A Trip to Roxton. 


75 


reached a level stretch, “ you’ve been in luck. 
Father says you could have knocked him down 
with a feather when he heard you all were 
at Heatherton Hall. He said there was no 
use in making you feel uncomfortable, so we 
didn’t say anything about it, but now that 
all has been quiet and you are going away so 
soon, I don’t mind telling you that there’s 
not a family within fifty miles would have 
been paid to stay there a week. It’s a bad 
thing to be in with the Heathertons, anyway, 
up here. The folks up on the Eidge are dead 
set against them; and to say nothing of the 
men, -who are bad enough, that old hag, Meg 
Watkins, has sworn vengeance on all the 
Heatherton kith and kin, and would as lief 
put a match to the house as not. And they are 
all so stupid they can’t understand you folks 
coming up to a battered old place like this, 
unless Squire Heatherton had something to 
do with it. You’ve taken big risks without 
knowing it,” continued Lem, “ but luckily it 
has turned out all right. Mother says babies 
always bring luck, so perhaps your little kids 
kept the boys quiet. There will be trouble 
before long, I am afraid, for I heard a lot of 
smuggled liquor had been captured down the 


76 


A Trip to Roxton. 


canal, and the officers are on its track. But 
you will be off before the row comes.” 

“ Yes,” said Fred, a trifle regretfully. 
“ Though if it were not for mother and the 
rest of them, Fd like to be here when the row 
comes and see the fun.” 

“ Fun ! ” echoed Lem grimly. “ If that’s 
the sort of fun you like, just try climbing up 
those rocks after nightfall,” and he nodded 
towards the fir-clad peaks around which the 
road curved. “ You would find all the fun 
yon wanted. They are guarded like a fortress 
after sundown.” 

“ Is that so ? ” asked Fred. “ Gee ! I’d like 
to try it, but father’s orders were not to leave 
mother and the girls unprotected after dark, 
so I’ve kept to the house.” 

“It was well you did,” said level-headed 
Lem. “ The boys on the Ridge are not to be 
fooled with, I tell you, especially by any one 
hailing from Heatherton Hall. If my father 
did not keep his eyes and mouth wisely shut 
we would not have a barn or a hayrick stand- 
ing. As it is, we mind our own business and 
let the folks on the Ridge mind theirs.” And 
then, as the big horses cautiously made their 
way down. Hie mountain road. Lem, who sei- 


A Trip to Roxton. 


77 


dom had time to talk at home, told more 
stories of the “ moonshiners ” — those daring 
outlaws who carried on their illicit liquor busi- 
ness in the rocks and caves of the mountains, 
in defiance of the government and its officers. 

Fred was shown the great barricade of cliff 
far up the wooded heights, where the two 
Watkins boys had been killed six years ago, 
when a band of excise officers, headed by the 
sheriff. Colonel Heatherton, had stormed the 
mountain, and, firing the brushwood, had 
fairly smoked the “ moonshiners ” out of their 
lairs. 

“ Looks as if there had been a hoodoo on 
Colonel Heatherton all his life,” said Lem, 
who had not lived in the mountain air so long 
without gathering some of its mists and 
vapors. “ The old folks up here say it’s be- 
cause he turned against his twin brother. It’s 
the worst sort of luck for twins to fall out, 
and father says that Jim and Joe Heatherton 
were like two halves of an acorn when they 
were little chaps; you never saw one without 
the other, and they used to sleep rolled tight 
in each other’s arms all night long. Then 
came the row, and c hottest love makes cold- 
est hate/ as father says.” 


78 


A Trip to Roxton. 


“ It was about the war, wasn’t it ? ” asked 
Fred, recalling Cal’s story. 

“ One was for the North and one for the 
South; that started it,” said Lem, “but that 
wasn’t all. Joe got wounded, and was taken 
to a hospital, where the Sisters of Charity 
nursed him, and he turned Romanist.” 

“ Catholic, you mean,” said Fred good- 
humoredly. 

“ Roman Catholic, then,” said Lem, who 
was a stanch Presbyterian. “ And if there was 
one thing the old Judge hated worse than 
a rebel, it was a Rom — I mean a Catholic — so 
that fixed Joe forever. He was cut off with 
a shilling, and told never to show his face at 
home again. And Colonel Jim Heatherton 
got everything, but he has had the worst sort 
of luck. Both of his boys died, and the little 
baby his wife left is not more than a bit of 
thistle-down, folks say, she is so delicate. But 
how I have been yarn-spinning ! Here we are 
at Roxton already.” 

“And no sign of your father’s boat,” said 
Fred, his quick eye scanning wharf and canal. 
“ Looks as if we had a long wait before us, 
Lem. What shall we do ? ” 

“ Business first,” briefly answered Lem, as 


A Trip to Roxton. 


79 


he turned his wagon towards the “ store ” 
that provided all public needs from the cradle 
to the coffin. And business with Lem was 
an affair of hours, not minutes. 

Dimes were of serious consideration in the 
mountain region, quarters were regarded as 
extravagant expenditure, dollars meant either 
drink or delirium, perhaps both; for he who 
spent dollars at a country store must he reck- 
less indeed. Everything went by trade; so 
while Lem was laboriously adjusting the re- 
spective values of chickens and coffee, butter 
arid flour, honey and soap, Fred had made his 
purchases on a cash basis that fairly para- 
lyzed the staring boy behind the counter, and 
strolled out to look around. 

There was not much to see: only the canal 
taking its sluggish way through the hills, and 
the one rough street of Roxton coming 
sleepily down the mountain side by the black- 
smith’s shop, and the wheelwright’s, the little 
meeting-house, and district school. The 
latter stood somewhat aside from the road, 
as became its scholastic dignity, and was sur- 
rounded by a small, bare-trodden waste, shel- 
tered by a few scraggy pines, which was 
known as a playground, and which served 


80 


A Trip to Roxton. 


usually as a gathering-place for all the idle 
and vagrant hoys of the village. About a 
dozen of them were there assembled this 
morning, tussling, pitching pennies, and 
looking for mischief generally. 

It came as it always does on such occasions, 
for as Fred stood gazing at the unattractive 
scene, a chorus of shouts and jeers arose from 
the young loafers, and an old woman shuffled 
down the road. 

She was about the most unpleasant looking 
old woman that Fred had ever seen. Her 
gaunt, bony form, bent almost double, was ar- 
rayed in a man’s coarse hunting-shirt and a 
black flannel petticoat; her gray hair fell in 
ragged wisps under a torn straw hat that was 
tied under her chin by an old black veil; her 
face was seamed and crinkled like the bark of 
a tree; while the dark sunken eyes burned in 
their sockets with the strange, fierce glow 
that lights troubled minds to madness. She 
had evidently come down to “ trade,” for the 
wretched basket hanging on her arm was full 
of herbs and roots and wild berries, valued 
for their medicinal properties by the simple 
country people, who have a wholesome dis- 
trust of doctors’ stuff, but poison themselves 


A Trip to Roxton. 


81 


cheerfully at the bidding of some “ wise old 
woman ” like this. 

“ Meg, Meg ! ” shouted the young ruffians. 
“ Old Mountain Meg has come a-trading. The 
boys up there couldn’t stand her any longer; 
they’ve druv her down. Old Wildcat Meg ! ” 

She turned upon them with a snarl that 
showed her yellow, broken teeth, and shook 
the stick she held savagely. 

It was the signal for a fresh outburst of 
derision. 

“ Where did you get that air bonnet, 
Meg ? ” 

“ Did Bud send it ter yer ? ” 

“ She’s wearing crape for her boys yet, 
don’t yer see ? What’s the news from Jim 
Heatherton ? ” 

With a shriek like a maddened thing, the 
old woman turned on her tormentors, strik- 
ing at them furiously. But the stick was 
snatched from her trembling hand by one, 
another caught the basket from her arm, 
while a third sent a shower of small pebbles 
flying around her ears. 

“ Go back ! ” they all shouted, pressing 
around her. “We don’t want old Meg Wild- 
fire’s witch-work down here. Kun her back 


82 A Trip to Roxton. 

to her den, boys; run her back to her 
den ! ” 

Fred could stand it no longer. This was 
the wild old woman of the mountain, he 
knew, who, like the fierce wolf-mother, was 
nearly maddened by the loss of her cubs. 

But mother-love and mother-grief, in any 
form, are holy things to boys like Fred, and 
his blood boiled with indignation at the 
cruelty of Meg’s tormentors. With half a 
dozen strides he was among them, striking 
out right and left in a scientific way that 
scattered them in very amazement. 

“You mean, miserable cowards,” he burst 
forth, “ to go hounding down in a pack a poor 
old woman like this ! ” 

“What hev you got to do with it, you 
durned city fool ? ” growled the biggest 
bully, recovering his breath. 

“ J ust this much,” answered Fred, with a 
dangerous spark in his eye, “that any one 
who proposes to continue this lark will have 
to settle with me first.” 

A chorus of defiant yells was the answer, 
but Fred’s handsome young face only steadied 
into stronger lines, as he stood on guard be- 
fore the dazed old Meg. 


A Trip to Roxton. 


83 


“ Yer want me to settle with you, eh ? ” 
growled the bully, who, being the leader of 
the village roughs, could not afford to lose 
his prestige. “ Come on, then, and we’ll set- 
tle. Stand back, boys. Fair play while I 
smash up this ere city mosquito that comes 
buzzing round us Eoxton boys with his brag.” 


CHAPTER VII. 


OLD MEG. 

“ Out of the way, granny / 5 said Fred to 
old Meg, as he tossed his neat coat aside and 
sprang to meet his bnrly antagonist, while the 
other hoys closed round them shouting and 
cheering on their champion in wild excite- 
ment. 

“ Give it to him, Tom ! Show the dandy 
fool Roxton muscle! Duck him in the canal !” 
while from store, smithy, and wheelwright 
shop, spectators poured forth to witness the 
affray. 

“ Stop them, stop them ! 55 shouted Lem 
White, dismayed as he saw his friend so un- 
equally matched. “It’s no fair fight,” he 
called, vainly struggling to push his way 
through the crowd to the combatants. “ That 
great bully, Tom Knight, is twice Fred’s 
weight; he will kill him.” 

“ Don’t you skeer, sonny,” chuckled a 
leather-visaged old mountaineer at Lem’s 
84 


Old Meg. 


85 


side. “ I’ll bet on the light-weight chap every 
time.” For it was the old battle, brain 
against brawn. Fred’s father had been a col- 
lege athlete in his time, and he had taught his 
boy the manly “ art of self-defence.” In less 
than three minutes the great lumbering bully 
was ignominiously down. Again and again 
he scrambled to his feet and lunged furiously 
at his slender opponent, only to be met with 
scientific blow and parry that bewildered and 
maddened him, until at last the shouts of the 
fickle crowd, many of whom had secret 
grudges against the village champion, pro- 
claimed Fred’s victory. “ You’re licked, Tom, 
licked fair and square. Own up. Hooray for 
the cit ! Hooray ! hooray ! ” 

“ What did I tell ye, sonny ? ” said the 
grizzly old mountaineer, laying his hand on 
Lem’s shoulder. “ That were ’bout ez pretty 
a fight as I ever seen, jest ’bout as pretty,” 
and the old fellow pressed up to Fred, who, 
with his short brown curls falling damp about 
his flushed face, was pulling on his coat, amid 
the respectful comments of the thoroughly 
subdued Eoxton roughs. 

“ Where did you learn to fight, cit ? I say, 
you know how to strike out. Hide your head. 


86 Old Meg. 

Tom; that ar mosquito spoiled your good 
looks.” 

“ Yes, and Fll be even with him fur it, see 
if I ain't,” snarled Tom, as he limped away 
amid the hoots and jeers of his quondam 
friends. 

“ Shake hands,” said Lem's old country- 
man, as he reached Fred's side. “ You're a 
man, that's wot you are, youngster, a man.” 

•“ Aye, aye ! ” shrieked old Meg, who had 
stood aside until now in dumb bewilderment 
at having her wrongs thus championed. 
“And I had two like him, two brave boys 
that would not have seen their mother hurt — 
two — two. They are buried up in the rocks, 
hunted down by Jim Heatherton and his 
bloodhounds — hunted down like wolves to 
their death — to their death.” 

“ Come, come,” said the old mountaineer 
with rough kindness, “ ease up on that p'int, 
Meg. Don't go yelling like a wildcat in the 
ears of this fine young chap that hez just 
fought for you like a man. I'll lay thar ain't 
another youngster on the mountain that 
would lift a finger for old Meg. What did ye 
do it for anyhow ? ” 

“I've got a mother,” said Fred briefly, 


Old Meg. 87 

“ and I know how her heart would break for 
her hoys.” • 

“ Do ye ? ” said old Meg, clutching his arm 
with her skinny hand, “ do ye know how 
mother’s hearts break, lad ? Oh, no, no; ye 
don’t, ye can’t ! The she hear knows, and the 
she wolf, for men kill their young, but not. 
you — for you’re a man — you’re a man. But 
if you’ve got a mother may she keep you long, 
keep you safe — safer than I could keep mine. 
Ha, ha, ha ! ” and the poor old creature burst 
into a wild, harsh laugh. “ Hear old Meg 
Watkins wishing good, old Meg that has had 
only curses on her lips this many a day, old 
Wildcat Meg wishing good to aught in the 
shape of man — ha, ha, ha ! ” 

“ Come away, Fred,” said Lem, in deep dis- 
gust; “ get out of this before that old hag 
stirs up another row. You must have wanted 
a fight when you pitched in for Wildcat Meg. 
Are you hurt ? ” 

“No, just a little blown,” laughed Fred; 
“that big blundering booby knows no more 
about boxing than he does about Greek.” 

“He knows enough to hit back on the sly 
if he gets the chance,” said Lem grimly. 
“ You can’t afford to get these fellows’ ill-will 


88 


Old Meg. 


while you stay at Heatherton Hall, I can tell 
you that. It’s black enough around there with 
hate and spite now. And Fve got news for 
you I don’t like,” continued Lem, drawing 
Fred into the shed where the wagon was shel- 
tered, that they might speak in safety. 
“ Colonel Heatherton is back.” 

“ Where ? ” asked Fred, startled. 

“ In America, and likely to be up here 
shortly. Nick Williams says he sent a lot of 
boxes and things up yesterday by Captain 
Trent’s boat, asking him to store them for a 
few days. And here is a letter for you that 
will perhaps explain matters.” 

Fred opened the letter, which bore the 
familiar stamp of Judson & Judson, and read: 

“ My dear Fred: 

“ Colonel Heatherton has returned from 
abroad, and it seems there has been some mis- 
apprehension in regard to your tenancy of his 
place. He has been under the impression 
that we simply put in a reliable watchman, 
who would leave on call. When we repre- 
sented the character of his tenants, and the 
cause of your summer in the mountains, he 
was very courteous and said he would not dis- 
turb you during the present hot season (we 
are having a regular August swelter, and 


Old Meg. 


89 


everybody that can is flying the town); but 
would only ask you to share the house with 
him, as he is anxious to take his little daugh- 
ter at once to her native mountain air, and 
wishes besides to begin at once the repairs 
necessary for permanent residence. 

“ I hope this will not incommode you in 
any way, but since it seems we overstepped 
our authority in giving you three months’ 
possession, we trust you will make the best 
of a somewhat awkward situation. 

“ This will precede the Colonel only by a 
day or two, as he leaves on Wednesday morn- 
ing. 

“ Very truly yours, 

“ T. L. Chumleigh.” 

“ Wednesday morning, and this is Thurs- 
day,” said Fred. “ Evidently Chumleigh does 
not understand the mail methods here. The 
Colonel will be at Heatherton to-night.” 

“ Worse luck for all of you ! ” said Lem 
curtly. “ Nick Williams says the boys up on 
the Eidge have got wind of it, and are mak- 
ing ready for him if he attempts to meddle 
with them. Long Shaun Dermott has a regu- 
lar barricade of logs and stones, and swears lie 
will hold it as long as he can hold a gun.” 

“ Who is Long Shaun ? ” asked Fred. 

“ A regular devil, from all accounts,” said 


90 


Old Meg. 


Lem, “ and he knows every inch of the moun- 
tain above and below ground. There are hol- 
lows and caves where these chaps can hide 
until the last horn blows/’ 

“ Hollows and caves ! ” exclaimed Fred, 
feeling that he had been wasting all sorts of 
exciting opportunities. “ Haven’t you ever 
explored them ? ” 

“ No, sir-ee ! ” answered Lem emphatically. 
“ Not with the chance of meeting a hungry 
bear or hunted mountaineer at the other end. 
The upper earth is good enough for me. 
There are holes and pitfalls, and underground 
streams, and all sorts of dangers to look out 
for, but this Long Shaun knows the moun- 
tain like a map; he used to hunt and trap 
here forty years ago when the two Heather- 
tons were boys. Father says he was a wild 
young Irishman then, without any particular 
harm in him. But he got into this whiskey 
business, and it brought him into bad com- 
pany, and he took to drinking and went to 
the Old Nick generally. And then he was 
caught in some smuggling affair and put in 
jail by Colonel Heatherton, and I believe his 
wife and child died while he was locked up, 
and then he turned devil in earnest. He 


Old Meg. 


91 


has been hunted from half a dozen counties, 
and Nick Williams says he has taken his last 
stand here and swears he will hold it or die. 
And as Colonel Heatherton is much the same 
kind of stuff it’s likely to he pretty hot up 
here before long. Fll hate to see you go, 
Fred, hut I advise you to get out of Heather- 
ton Hall as quickly as possible.” 

“ Oh, I guess they won’t hurt us,” said 
Fred lightly; “ we have only two weeks more, 
and we can’t take the kids hack to swelter in 
town this August weather. And, hallo ! 
there comes your father’s boat; we’re in luck, 
Lem, and won’t have to wait. Gee whiz ! 
she is loaded up; and look at the barge be- 
hind her.” 

And both boys sprang from the shed and 
stared in amazement at the sight that 
brought all Roxton to the doors and windows. 
For Squire White’s “ Pocahontas ” was slowly 
coming up the canal, laden with unusual 
freight of trunks, boxes, baskets, a pretty little 
wicker phaeton, a pair of tiny Shetland ponies, 
a parrot, shrieking angrily in its gayly painted 
cage, a garden swing, and various juvenile be- 
longings too numerous to mention; while be- 
hind the lumbering old canal-boat floated a 


92 


Old Meg. 


small excursion barge, gay with awnings and 
cushions and pennants. A brisk, trim-look- 
ing serving man was beginning to gather up 
satchels and baskets, while a neat, bright- 
eyed woman stood on the deck with a little 
girl at her side. 

A very fairy queen of a little girl, in soft, 
fluffy white dress, a cloud of golden hair float- 
ing from under her pretty flower-wreathed 
hat, and a face like a snow-drop. 

“ Look, Elise; oh, look, look ! ” she said, 
clapping her hands delightedly; “ we are stop- 
ping at last. Look ! Oh, how high the 
mountain is, Elise; it almost touches heaven; 
are we going up there ? ” 

“ Truly, I fear so, mademoiselle, ” answered 
Elise, with an anxious look at the towering 
heights around her. “ Misericorde ! but it is 
terrible, this wild America.” 

“ Terrible ! ” laughed the little girl. “ Do 
the big hills frighten you, Elise ? They do 
not frighten me. I love them, I love them ! 
Oh, I hope we are going to the very tip-top of 
them all.” 

“H eaven forbid ! ” said Elise, in dismay. 
“ How we are to climb such savage heights at 
all, mademoiselle, I cannot see. It seems a 


Old Meg. 


93 


wilderness. Jean, Jean, is it that we are to 
land in this desolate spot ? Are you sure ? 99 

“ This is the place,” said the brisk Jean, 
approaching, his arms full of packages. 
“ Monsieur said we would get a wagon that 
would take us up to Heatherton Hall. This 
would be easier for mademoiselle than the 
rough twenty miles from the railroad. Will 
mademoiselle wait tuere until I have arranged 
for her journey, or go on shore at once ? ” 

“ Oh, let us go ashore ! 99 said little mad- 
emoiselle. “ I am tired of the old boat. 
Come, Elise; see, it is not so wild; there are 
no Indians such as you fear. Look, there is 
a shop and some nice little white houses, and 
truly, I believe, a church, Elise, even a 
church, where you can say your prayers.” 

“Ah, mademoiselle, no — no,” said Elise 
dolefully, “ that is not a church like mine.” 

“And there are two boys,” said the little 
lady, in a whisper, “ two real gentlemen boys, 
Elise, in nice clothes. May I go speak to 
them ? May I tell them I am little Alma 
Heatherton, and I have come here to live al- 
ways in my papa’s beautiful mountain 
home ? ” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

LITTLE MISS HE ATHERTON". 

The little heiress of Heatherton came trip- 
ping along the wharf holding her nurse’s 
hand and smiling up into the dull faces and 
lowering eyes bent upon her. 

There were mutterings around she did not 
hear, sullen, angry glances she did not see. 
Even Nick Williams, the Roxton storekeeper, 
who had hitherto maintained diplomatic re- 
lations with all parties, stood in his doorway, 
staring in open-mouthed bewilderment at this 
unexpected arrival. 

“ Baby Alma ” had been a diminutive little 
atom in arms "when her parents had left 
Heatherton five years ago, and this dainty 
little fairy princess with her ponies and her 
parrot and her foreign attendants was dis- 
tinctly startling to Roxton prejudice. 

But little Miss Heatherton, love-sheltered 
as she had been during her brief life, knew 
94 


Little Miss Heatherton. 


95 


nothing of fear or distrust. “ Come on, Elise, 
come on; let us climb the hills a little bit, 
and — ■” 

“ Oh, mademoiselle, no, no ! ” said Elise 
anxiously; “ this American sun is too terrible; 
perhaps the young gentleman here can point 
out to us an inn where we can wait for the 
diligence until it comes/’ 

The “ young gentleman,” Fred, stepped 
forward. 

“ You will find no inn or diligence here, I 
am afraid,” he answered with a smile. “ But 
if you will take seats on the store-porch here 
(Williams, get chairs or boxes for these 
ladies), I will gladly do what I can for you; 
I am from Heatherton Hall.” 

" Ah, thanks to Heaven ! ” said Elise, with 
a sigh, as she took the chair given her. “ For 
the moment I feared we were mistaken in our 
way. Jean, Jean, it is all right, it is all 
right,” she called to the brisk French 
“ gargon.” “ This young gentleman is from 
Heatherton Hall.” 

“ What is your name ? ” asked little Miss 
Heatherton, who had perched herself com- 
fortably on a soap-box, and was evidently dis- 
posed to be sociable. 


96 


Little Miss Heatherton. 


“Fred Lindsay / 5 was the good-humored 
answer. 

“ Fred ! that is a nice name / 5 continued 
the young lady approvingly. “ I had a 
brother Fred, but — he died . 55 

“ That was a pity / 5 answered Fred gravely. 

“ I had also a brother J ames / 5 added the 
little speaker, whose English had a quaint 
French turn; “he died, too. My mamma 
died also; everybody is dead but papa and me . 55 

“ That is very sad / 5 replied Fred, with 
propeT sympathy. 

“Yes / 5 said Miss Alma, “that is what 
everybody says. I wore black ribbons on all 
my dresses for how long, Elise ? 55 

“ For two years mademoiselle wore mourn- 
ing / 5 answered Elise solemnly. 

“ So did my doll also; we were both very 
sad altogether. My doll 5 s name is Henriette. 
She is blind . 55 

“Blind ? 55 echoed Fred. “Rather odd to 
have a blind doll, isn’t it ? 55 

“ Yes / 5 said Alma gravely. “ She was very 
beautiful. She had gold curls even longer 
than mine. But she fell down, and her eyes 
dropped back in her head 55 — there was a piti- 
ful quiver in the rosy little lips as Alma re- 


Little Miss Heatherton. 


97 


counted the tragedy — “ and then she was 
blind.” 

“ Too bad,” said Fred, with proper sym- 
pathy in his tone; "couldn’t anything he 
done for her ? ” 

“ Ho,” said Alma, “ I cried all night and 
papa went down the street and bought me a 
lovely new doll dressed in pink, with a fan 
and a necklace; but I wouldn’t have her. I 
sent her back to the shop, for Henriette, my 
poor Henriette’s heart would break if I gave 
her up because she was blind. So Elise put 
a nice blue bandage over her eye-places and I 
play with her all the same. I don’t have very 
many people to play with, that is why I so 
love poor Henriette. It is not as if I had 
brothers or sisters who were not dead. Have 
you any little brothers and sisters ? ” 

" A crowd of them,” answered Fred, laugh- 
ing. 

“ Where are they ? ” asked Alma eagerly. 

“ Up at your place — Heatherton Hall. My 
little brother was sick, and we came up to 
take care of the place, so that he might 
have the mountain air. But of course they 
won’t stay up there now you have come 
back.” 


98 


Little Miss Heatherton. 


“ Oh, won't they P " said the little lady 
sorrowfully. “ I wish they would. Can't 
they stay for a while and play with me ? Oh, 
Elise, do you hear ? this nice Fred has a 
crowd of little brothers and sisters at my 
house taking care of it. When my papa 
comes to-morrow I will beg him to ask 
the little girls and boys to stay. He could 
not come with us when we left yesterday, as 
he expected, and the town was so hot I was 
getting weak, so he sent me in the boat with 
Elise and Jean. And it was very nice on the 
water, but I got tired and I am glad to get 
to land again." And the little lady hopped 
down from her perch and began investigating 
her surroundings. 

Crouched down behind a comer of the 
porch was old Meg, who had packed up the 
scant store of tea and tobacco for which she 
had traded her simples, and was munching 
her midday meal, a stale corncake and piece 
of cheese, when Alma's soft eyes fell upon the 
wretched picture. “ Poor old woman," she 
said pitifully. “ Elise, there is some chicken 
in the basket still and some sandwiches; may 
I take them to the old woman there ? " 

“ Certainly, if you wish, mademoiselle." 


T>» ^ 


Little Miss Heatkerton. 


99 


And old Meg, lifting her fierce, bleared 
eyes, saw the little golden-haired figure stand- 
ing before her holding a dainty folded napkin. 

“ Poor old woman,” said Alma softly. " I 
have brought you some of my nice lunch. 
Throw that old bread away and take this.” 
And she dropped the napkin on the old 
woman’s lap. 

" Who are you ? ” gasped old Meg, rousing 
from a semi-doze, and staring after the child, 
who had flitted away, attracted by the great 
wagon rolling up to the store-door. 

“ Don’t you know who ’tis ? ” asked the 
surly voice of the old mountaineer, who stood 
near by. "It’s Jim Heatherton’s kid, that 
he hez just sent up by the boat.”^ 

“ His child — his ? ” With a fierce impre- 
cation the old woman flung the napkin from 
her, while her burning eyes turned towards 
the little white figure on the porch with a 
look of baleful hate. “ His child ? and she 
dares come nigh to me — to me ? ” 

" What has the child done but give ye food, 
ye old spitfire ? ” said the other bluntly. 
"Heatherton or not, she’s as purty a little 
creetur as I ever seen. Have ye forgotten 
that ye once had little kids yourself ? ” 


100 


Little Miss Heatherton. 


“Ay, I had — I had,” mumbled old Meg, 
while something like a deep sob rose in her 
throat. “ I ain’t — ain’t — a-feeling right. 
Something’s a-hurting me here,” an she 
clutched at her skinny breast. “ I wish the 
hoy hedn’t a-f ought fur me; I wish the kid 
hedn’t come nigh to me with her vittles — 
I ain’t — ain’t — feeling right — here — ” And 
with another passionate blow upon her soft- 
ening heart the old woman rose and hobbled 
away. 

Meanwhile, with much excited broken 
English, Jean was loading up Nick Williams’s 
big white-topped wagon that had conveyed 
the Lindsays to Heatherton Hall. Trunks, 
boxes, bandboxes, bird-cages, garden swings 
and garden chairs, hampers of wine and 
groceries, a doll’s carriage and doll’s house, 
were piled in until only room was left for 
Nick Williams’s boy, Sam, and Jean to swing 
their legs from the driver’s seat. 

“ Where are you going to put your folks ? ” 
ssked the storekeeper, who was looking on. 
“ In that basket-wagon ? ” 

“ Non, non,” said Jean, “ that must remain 
until to-morrow at the shop, for the wheels to 
be arranged. We must have another voiture . 


Little Miss Heatherton. 


101 


Monsieur said that we would wdthout doubt 
find here carriages and wagons strong and 
large to our command.” 

“ Dunno ’bout the command,” drawled 
Nick, who felt that suspicious eyes were re- 
garding his relations with the Heathertons, 
and it behooved him not to be too friendly. 
“ I don’t run no livery stable fur furrin 
dooks; I’ve got that ar wagon fur hire, and I 
ain’t got nothing else. But Squire White’s 
team is down here, and he might give some of 
yer folks a lift up the mountain.” 

“ Certainly,” said Lem, who, owing to the 
previous charter of the “ Pocahontas,” was 
going home with very light freight. 

“ Shake down those grain-bags, Fred, and 
make a seat for the ladies. We are going 
straight up to Heatherton Hall.” And then 
Jean covered the grain-bags with soft rugs 
and silken cushions, and Elise, with a martyr- 
like aspect, was assisted to a seat on a soap- 
box, and little Miss Heatherton lifted by 
Fred to her snuggery, and the caravan started 
on its lumbering way up the mountain. 

“Oh, how nice this is!” exclaimed Alma de- 
lightedly; “ I never rode like this before, and 
we are going higher and higher every mo- 


102 


Little Miss Heatherton. 


ment. We are above the tree-tops now. Oh, 
Elise, do yon not find this charming ? Oh, 
what happiness to play all day long on this 
beautiful mountain ! ” And so little Miss 
Heatherton chirped and chattered in high 
glee until the long ride and delightful 
novelty and soothing lullaby of the mountain 
breeze proved too much for her, and nestling- 
back among her cushions she sank into rosy, 
happy sleep. 

Merry shouts of greeting wakened her, and 
the bewildered little one found herself before 
a great old house standing shadowy in the 
gathering twilight. Fred lifted her <mt on a 
vine-wreathed porch; a crowd of wondering 
children gathered around her, a sweet mother- 
voice spoke words of welcome, and the little 
heiress of Heatherton was atohome again. 

* * * * 

It was the merriest of all the merry even- 
ings at the old Hall; never had the young 
Lindsays found a more bewitching little play- 
mate. Neither love nor luxury had been able 
to spoil Alma’s sunny nature and generous 
little heart. Delicate health and early be- 
reavement had made her vounsr life a lonely 
one and she was wild with delight at finding 


Little Miss Heatherton. 


103 


herself one of a merry crowd. The children 
chased each other np and down the broad 
stairs, played hide-and-seek in the big dusky 
parlors, danced to Fred’s whistle over the 
polished floors. Alma’s treasures were brought 
out and scattered around with lavish hand. 
Bonbons, trinkets, toys, games, were given 
right and left to her new friends. 

“ My dear, my dear, no,” said Mrs. Lindsay 
gently, when Alma, on the morning after her 
arrival came down from the rooms in the west 
wing, which had been hurriedly prepared for 
her accommodation, wit ^ a costly Parisian 
dancing doll for Dickie-bird to demolish at 
his leisure. 

“You must not give away your beautiful 
toys.” 

“ Won’t the little boy like it ? ” asked 
Alma in disappointment. “You wind it up 
like this and it whirls all around the room.” 

“I know, dear, it is very pretty, but you 
must keep it yourself.” 

“ I don’t want it,” said Alma eagerly. “ I 
don’t want anything now but the trees and 
the rocks and the brook — and — and poor 
Henriette. I will keep her always, because 
she is blind and we were so sad together in 


104 


Little Miss Heatherton. 


Paris. But we shall be happy up here, oh, so 
happy.” 

And Mrs. Lindsay could only smile a tear- 
ful, pitying, mother-smile for the little 
motherless one, as a few moments afterwards 
she saw “ Henriette ” attired in the latest 
French fashions, her blue-bandaged brows 
carefully shaded by a miniature leghorn hat, 
seated on the rim of the broken fountain, 
where Rogue Robin and Alma were holding 
mn animated conversation. Hitherto girls of 
his own age had been objects of no interest 
Lo Rogue Robin; they had ways and methods 
which he scorned, they “ cried ” and “ told 
tales,” and were generally distasteful to him. 
But this golden-haired little princess who 
had descended upon Heatherton was of an al- 
together new pattern. A girl who had two 
ponies, a poodle, and a parrot that talked 
French was not an every-day arrival, but when 
that same girl presented Rogue Robin with a 
singing top, a pearl-handled penknife, and a 
box of pink lozenges, his allegiance was won 
forever, and then and there, on the broken- 
rimmed fountain, was made a perilous 
covenant which only the blind Henriette and 
the storm-blackened Cupid heard. 


Little Miss Heatherton. 


105 


“ I am so glad we’ve got a mountain,” said 
Alma, looking rapturously over the great 
green world stretching above and around 
her. “ I’d rather have a mountain than 
anything else in the world.” 

“ Is the mountain all yours ? ” asked Rogue 
Robin, quite prepared to have this little 
princess claim the whole Western continent 
as her exclusive possession. 

“ All mine and my papa’s,” answered Alma 
confidently. “ The trees and the big rocks 
and the great high places shining in the sun 
— and — and — everything. Ah, Henriette, 
cherie ,” continued the little girl, lapsing into 
French, as she clasped the afflicted Henri- 
ette’ s slender waist, “it is far better even 
than the Tuileries if you could but see it — 
pauvre amie. I speak French always to 
Henriette,” explained Alma, “ for English 
she could never understand.” 

Rogue Robin only stared; his mind was re- 
volving other and more interesting problems. 
“ If the mountain is your papa’s, why don’t 
he drive away Jack-o’-Lantern ? I would if 
I were a man, I know.” 

“ Who is Jack-o’-Lantern ? ” asked Alma 
curiously. 


106 


Little Miss Heatherton. 


And then, while the little mistress of the 
Manor listened breathlessly, Rogue Robin re- 
counted Jack’s history as gathered from vari- 
ous authentic domestic sources. 

Alma’s soft cheek flushed and her soft eyes 
flamed indignantly. 

“ He shan’t stay on my mountain,” she ex- 
claimed; “my papa will drive him off right 
away; I will tell him about him and he will 
go after him with a gun; and we can’t go any- 
where, you say, and we have to stay right 
here in this garden ? ” 

“ Oh, you can go anywhere,” said Rogue 
Robin. “Jack don’t ever catch girls, Lou 
says so; she took me up the mountain with 
her the other day and wasn’t afraid a bit. 
Neither was I; I tell you, it was fine up there, 
Alma, red and yellow flowers, and grapes and 
plums, and big vines twisted into swings, and 
trees full of honey.” 

“Trees full of honey?” echoed Alma in won- 
der. “ Oh, sure enough, Robbie, real honey?” 

“ Fine,” answered Rogue Robin, smacking 
his lips; “ I brought a big piece of comb home, 
and gee ! it did suck good.” 

“ Who put it there ? ” asked Alma, in 
breathless amazement; “the fairies ? ” 


Little Miss Heatherton. 


107 


“No, the bees/’ answered Rogue Robin 
prosaically. 

“ Oh, no, no,” said Alma, “ it must have 
been fairies ! Oh, there are fairies in this 
mountain, I am sure ! Oh, I would just love 
to go up, away up, where you did, and see 
all those beautiful things ! Can’t we ? are 
you afraid ? ” 

“ Afraid ! a boy and afraid ? ” Rogue 
Robin’s soldier spirit fired at the thought. 
Besides, had not the mountain’s call been 
echoing day and night in his ears for the last 
week ? 

“No,” he said sturdily, casting a prudent 
glance at the kitchen, where Mam’ Patsy was 
ironing with Tier back to the window. “ I 
ain’t afraid a bit; come on, let’s go.” 


CHAPTER IX. 


TWO LITTLE TRUANTS. 

Round the terrace, past the evergreen 
hedge that skirted the south windows, pat- 
tered the two little truants, Rogue Robin 
leading the way, and eluding detection with 
the skill of a small but practised scout, while 
Alma, with Henriette clasped tight in her 
arms followed more laboriously. 

Through the pine groves where the little 
feet made no sound, and the murmuring 
boughs sighed no betrayal, over the brook 
that was foaming furiously against the dam 
the children had built the day before, the 
pretty pair skipped noiselessly until the 
mountain path opened before them, arched 
with yellowing boughs, flooded with sunlight, 
gay with nodding blossoms, a very ladder of 
gold leading up, up, up, almost, it seemed, to 
the sky. 

There was the breath of ripening grapes in 

108 


Two Little Truants. 


109 


the air, the scarlet banners of the sumach 
waved triumphantly, and the goldenrod 
tossed its plumes to the breeze: the naughty 
mountain breeze, that was in its most mis- 
chievous mood to-day, playing hide-and-seek 
in the ravines and gorges, shaking the tree- 
tops until the green acorns rattled down and 
the little birds flew away chattering in 
affright, and sweeping down in merry gusts 
on the children as they climbed higher and 
higher into the land of the sky. They found 
the plum-tree bending with its delicious 
burden and the grape-vine heavy with pur- 
ple clusters, a little tart as yet for Alma’s 
taste. But she perched on the great rope of 
twisted vines and Rogue Robin swung her, 
while the woods re-echoed to her silvery 
shouts of glee. But vain was the search for 
the wonderful honey-tree; though the chil- 
dren turned and returned it could not be 
found. 

“ It was a fairy tree and they have taken it 
away,” said Alma dolefully. “And Henri- 
ette is tired (is it not so, cherie ?); never did 
she climb a mountain before; she must rest.” 

“ Hi !” said Rogue Robin, peering up a sun- 
lit vista, “there, I see the honey-tree now, 


110 


Two Little Truants. 


just a little higher up. Put your doll down 
until we come back.” 

“Lie down, then, pauvrette, fy and Alma, 
whose little arms began to ache with their 
burden, deposited Henriette carefully on a 
mossy stone. “ Take these pretty flowers to 
keep until we return. It will not be 
long, cherie ; lie down on this soft moss and 
sleep, my poor little blind one; sleep, sleep ! ” 
And patting the recumbent Henriette, with 
many French endearments Alma finally 
covered her with a small embroidered hand- 
kerchief, and left her to enjoy her siesta 
while she scrambled after Rogue Robin, up a 
stony ledge to the alluring tree that seemed 
so near. But alas ! among the small guide’s 
scouting proclivities, following a trail was not 
included; Rogue Robin invariably “ got lost ” 
as soon as he turned a corner. Boldly as he 
led the hunt after the elusive “ honey-bearer,” 
every step only meshed the little wanderers 
deeper in the mountain’s labyrinths. Poor 
little Alma at last began to pant wearily. 

“ Oh, I don’t want to look for honey-trees 
any more, and Henriette will wake up and 
find herself alone. Let us go back to Henri- 
ette.” And somewhat dolefully, as older 


Two Little Truants. 


Ill 


truants who wander after forbidden sweets, 
the little travellers tried to retrace their steps 
towards the deserted slumberer. 

“ It was this way we came,” said Rogue 
Robin, turning hopelessly astray. 

“ It was under a big tree we left her,” said 
Alma, looking vaguely around the oaks that 
encircled them. 

“ Come on; I see it ! ” said Rogue Robin, 
plunging forward into deeper labyrinths of 
gloom. 

“ Oh, that isn’t the place at all,” piped 
Alma. “ Oh, we’ve lost her ! we’ve lost Hen- 
riette ! my poor Henriette ! oh, what will she 
do when she finds herself alone on the great 
mountain ? ” And Alma lifted up her voice 
and wailed aloud in despair. 

“ Don’t,” said Rogue Robin desperately. 
“ Don’t cry like that; we’ll find her in a min- 
ute — and — and — she won’t mind being left; 
she’s only a doll, you know.” 

iC Ah, my Henriette, my poor blind Henri- 
ette ! ” sobbed Alma, utterly deaf to this mas- 
culine consolation, as she stumbled along 
after her reckless little companion, higher 
and farther into the woodland tangles. 

And now a dark frown gathered on the 


112 


Two Little Truants. 


sunlit sky, the face of the mountain darkened, 
and the trees began to shiver and whisper 
fearfully, while deep down in the gorge§ the 
breeze sobbed and cried like a frightened 
child. Alma’s dainty white dress was in tat- 
ters now, her flower-wreathed hat swung dis- 
mally from her shoulders, and the pretty 
little face was tear-stained and woful. 

“ Oh, I don’t like mountains,” she sobbed, 
limping along, for her soft kid boots had been 
cut by the sharp rocks until her delicate feet 
were almost bare. “ I want to go back to 
Paris to-morrow; oh, my Henriette, my poor 
blind Henriette, never will I see her again, 
never ! ” 

“ Yes, you will; don’t cry, Alma, please 
don’t cry,” pleaded Rogue Robin, feeling his 
own spirit quail, but keeping up like the 
sturdy little bit of manhood he was. “ It ain’t 
far now, we’ll find her in a minute, we are 
’most there now; come on.” 

And then poor little Alma, denied even the 
solace of a handkerchief in this dire ex- 
tremity, wiped her pretty eyes dolefully on 
her briar-torn frock and limped piteously on. 
Darker and darker each moment grew the 
mountain; blacker the great cloud frowning 


Two Little Truants. 


113 


over its brow; and now came a fierce, sullen 
mutter that rumbled and roared back from 
the gorges and peaks until the whole moun- 
tain seemed to shake like a great rousing lion 
shaking his mane. Then, oh, then came a 
fierce whistling rush, and the trees paled and 
cowered and bent, as with a blaze of awful 
light the great Father Wind burst forth from 
his mountain-cloud lair. 

“ Oh, what is it ! what is it ! ” shrieked 
Alma in wild affright. 

“ It’s the storm ; ” and Rogue Robin, little 
soldier that he was, steadied his own quiver- 
ing lip, and clasping his half-fainting little 
companion, dragged her into the shelter of a 
big rock. "Hold tight to me, Alma, hold 
tight. Fll take care of you; we can’t get 
home just yet. Hold tight; don’t be scared. 
It’s — it’s only a storm.” 

* * * # 

A storm of a far different kind had been 
gathering on the Ridge that day. 

High up among the dwarf oaks and pines 
and bare reaches of rock and rude barricades 
of logs and brush that guarded every level 
opening, a crowd of roughly clad, rough- 
bearded men had been discussing in sullen. 


114 


Two Little Truants. 


angry tones the expected return of the mas- 
ter of Heatherton. 

“ Ay, he will be back by to-night,” said one 
speaker gruffly. “ He hez given it out plain 
and straight enuff. Thar ain’t nuthing of the 
sneak ’bout Jim Heatherton, I’ll say that fur 
him.” 

“Reckon he ’lows he cleared this hyar 
Ridge out so well six years ago, that there 
ain’t nuthing to skeer about,” said another, 
with a harsh laugh. 

“Ay, and he’ll try to clear it out agin,” 
said the long-limbed mountaineer who had 
met Fred at Roxton. “ Nick Williams says he 
is coming back this time to settle fur good. 
I was down thar yisterday when he sent up his 
little gal and a boat-load of traps, furrin ser- 
vants and hosses and everything, and Wil- 
liams says there’s carpenters and masons 
a-coming to fix up the house; and t liar’s talk 
of the old mines that was flooded twenty years 
ago being pumped out with some new-fangled 
machinery; and a railroad struck across to 
Roxton. Going ter improve the property all 
around, and clar the Ridge out agin, I guess.” 

“ If he can,” said a deep, fierce voice, and a 
huge, gaunt, grizzly-headed man who had 


Two Little Truants. 


115 


been seated on a rock near by cleaning his 
gun in silence, nodded grimly. “ Better put 
that in, Phil, me lad; Fm to have a wurd to 
say to Mister Colonel Heatherton, and I mane 
to say it plain, and say it soon. This Ridge 
isn’t any more his than ’tis mine.” 

“ True for you; it isn’t, Shaun, not while 
we hold it,” replied the other, with a laugh. 

“Pm not maning that now,” said Long 
Shaun slowly. “I mane this: that fur away 
in the worruld, God knows where, there may 
be one poor and lonely and starving (for he 
was too much of the big-hearted gintleman 
to know how to turn the nimble pinny) — one, 
I say, that Jim Heatherton, cowld-'hearted 
brother that he was, druv from his home and 
fortune and friends. There’s a few of ye here, 
mates, that knew Joe Heatherton, and how 
he w T as robbed and chated and turned off his 
own — and him that done it is playing the 
lawmaker on us. Let him thry it,” said Long 
Shaun, his brow darkening stormily. “Let 
him thry it if he dares. There’s a ’count writ 
in blood agin him on these ’ere rocks.” 

“ That there is, that there is ! ” assented a 
wrathful chorus. 

“And only blood will blot it out,” said 


116 


Two Little Truants. 


a tall, black-browed mountaineer leaning 
against a tree. 

Long Shaun lifted the dark eyes, deep-set 
under his grizzled brows, to the speakers 
strange eyes; they were fierce and wild, and 
yet with sad shadows deepening around 
them that all their fiery flashing could not 
lighten. 

“ Now you’re talking, boys,” he said ap- 
provingly; “now you’re talking right. We 
hould this Ridge, law or no law, and we do 
our own wurk here in our own way, and ez 
for Jim Heatherton if he or his comes next 
or nigh uz, that ’count will be settled, mates.” 
And Long Shaun rose to his full gigantic 
height, and lifting his knotted hand to 
heaven, spoke an awful oath: “ That ’count is 
going to be settled if I swing fur it.” 

“Ye beant a-going to settle it now, Shaun, 
air ye P ” asked one of the “ mates ” with a 
forced laugh, as Long Shaun clapped a ragged 
felt hat on his head and turned down the 
Ridge. 

“ None of yer bisness,” growled Shaun 
fiercely. “ I’m goin’ alone with Cormac 
here,” and he snapped his fingers to a gaunt, 
long-limbed hound that bounded forward at 


Two Little Truants. 


117 


his call. “ He hez a tongue he can hold and 
I want no more gab.” 

“Best not meddle with the old man this 
time of year,” said Phil, as the man and 
dog disappeared behind the rocks. “ He is as 
dangerous as a stuck wildcat in midsum- 
mer. ’Twas then his wife and baby died, and 
it comes back on him like the agoo. He’s got 
an old den somewhere, and they say he keeps 
a lot of his wife’s belongings there (she was a 
pretty tidy bit of a thing in her day), but it 
would be wuth your life ennymost to cross 
the door. And when this here spell of grief 
comes on him he tramps the woods all night 
long. Ay, man, but he’s a devil. Did ye see 
that blaze in his eyes when we was talking ? 
Shouldn’t wonder if he meant to lay for Jim 
Heatherton and hev it out with him man to 
man to-night.” 

Meantime the subject of these remarks, 
with Cormac at his heels, was tramping fierce- 
ly away over rock and brier, snapping twigs 
and crushing the undergrowth that impeded 
his steps, with the impatience of some tor- 
tured thing. For more than an hour he kept 
on his way, and then making a sudden turn 
from a rocky ledge, he pressed an opening 


118 


Two Little Truants. 


through a thicket of dwarf pines and entered 
a little mountain glen. 

All around the rocks rose in frowning 
walls, but a tiny waterfall leaping down their 
rugged sides kept this bit of level green, and 
two tall beeches rose in its centre, filling it 
with their tender shade. Under the beeches 
was a long, grassy mound headed by a cross, 
rudely formed of rocks, and intertwined with 
ivy that held and bound it into shape until 
it seemed a mass of living green. 

With a deep groan that was almost a cry, 
Shaun flung himself face down upon the 
mound, while Cormac lifted his voice in a 
howl of alarm. 

“ Whisht, ye brute ! ” said his master, start- 
ing up on his knees and catching the dog by 
the throat. “ Didn’t I tell ye it was bekase 
ye could howld yer tongue I brought ye here ? 
Whisht, and don’t throuble thim that lie be- 
low. Ochone, ochone ! though what differs it, 
for naither call nor cry can wake thim now ? 
It’s only the poor little bones that I tuk me- 
self from the pauper’s grave where they were 
flung — whin hunger and want and woe had 
killed ye both, and I wasn’t nigh to help yez, 
heart of me heart. It’s naither prayer nor 


Two Little Truants. 


119 


tear I can give ye,” he continued, with a 
hoarse, dry sob, “naither prayer nor tear, 
Katy, for the fires of hate have burned me 
eyes and me soul dhry. All I can do for ye, 
avourneens, is to kape yer grave and the cross 
above it green, for I don’t forget ye, Katy, 
ye nor my bit of blue-eyed Aily; divil that 
I am, I don’t forget.” 

He picked up the few scattered leaves that 
marred the velvety turf of the grave, felt that 
the cross was steady under its veiling, bent 
down and pressed a long passionate kiss upon 
the mound, and then starting to his feet, 
turned hurriedly away across the mountain 
top, now darkening with the gathering storm. 

On and on he strode, while the heights 
grew blacker and the twitter of frightened 
birds came from the trembling tree-tops, and 
thunderous mutters shook the rocks; and 
even brave Cormac, slinking along with ears 
and tail down, seemed to cower from the 
wrath to come. 

But Long Shaun’s deep eyes flashed, and 
his great gaunt form thrilled in fierce, strange 
sympathy with the warring elements. 

“ Ay, there’s a storm coming, lad,” he said 
to his shivering companion; “ there’s a storm 


120 


Two Little Truants. 


coming over the peaks that will shake the 
mountain to its core. There’ll be many a 
stout tree snapped and many a tough root up- 
torn by the wind that’s gathering yon. Does 
it fright ye, lad, the call of the storm ? 
Come then, come, let us get shelter while we 
may; eh ! what’s that P ” Shaun paused with 
the outlaw’s instinct as his eye fell upon a 
white flutter in a bush. “Who or what are 
ye, hiding there ? ” With a mighty stride he 
was on the spot, his hand on the trigger of his 
gun. 

A small white handkerchief was waving on 
the bush to which it had blown, and beneath 
it, reposing in happy indifference to desertion 
and danger, her leghorn hat still stiffly guard- 
ing Alma’s flowers, lay the lost Henriette. 

Long Shaun stared for a moment in dumb 
amazement. 

“ Be jabers ! ” he muttered, a queer pang 
like a sword-thrust striking right into his 
heart. “ It’s — it’s — a doll baby ! ” 

And the finder’s firm lips twitched, for 
long years ago he had spent the last cent in 
his pocket t© bring little “ Aily ” a doll like 
this. And oh, how she had loved it, kissed it, 
slept with it, grieved for it when it came to 


Two Little Truants. 


121 


a doll’s untimely end. He could see the little 
quivering lip, the swimming blue eyes, even 
now. 

“ Some of the childhre up here will be 
scraching themselves into fits about that same 
doll baby to-morrow,” he growled. “ I’ll take 
it home wid me and save it from the storm.” 
And he thrust Henriette, as he spoke, into his 
huge pocket, whence her bandaged brows 
and leghorn hat nodded cheerfully as he 
strode along to his mountain den. 


CHAPTER X. 


THROUGH THE STORM. 

Meanwhile, the two little wanderers 
cowered under the shadow of the great rock, 
nearly dazed with terror, while the storm 
hurst upon the mountain in all its wrath. 
Clap after clap of thunder shook the heights 
and was rolled back by answering echoes, 
while the forked lightning leaped from peak 
to peak, or blazed in awful sheets of flame 
across the blackened sky, and great trees bent 
and snapped and crashed in the teeth of the 
wind. 

“ Papa, papa/’ wailed Alma piteously. 

“ Hold tight to me, Alma, hold tight ! ” 
cheered Rogue Robin, bracing his chubby 
form to meet the blast, w^hile he clasped his 
little companion in his sturdy arms. “ Hold 
tight, and let us say our prayers. 0 dear 
Lord, please take care of us, specially Alma, 
122 


Through the Storm. 


123 


because she is a girl. Hail Mary, full of grace 
— hold tight, Alma, hold tight ! — 0 Blessed 
Mother, good little angel, don’t, don’t let us 
blow away ! Oh ! oh ! oh ! ” The prayer 
died away into a terrified cry on the gallant 
little knight’s quivering lips as an awful 
vision met his eye. 

For striding on through crashing trees and 
thunder roar and lightning flash, came a 
huge, brawny form, with grizzled beard and 
shaggy head and gun and bag — and — and the 
luckless Henriette nodding in his pocket. 
Jack-o’-Lantern at last ! the terrible, roving, 
ravening robber Jack ! Jack, who could not 
even let a baby doll escape his clutch, without 
catching it from mere force of habit ! Rogue 
Robin had faced storm and darkness and 
lightning blaze like a hero, but the appear- 
ance of the long-talked of, long-dreaded Jack, 
was too much for this six-year-old soldier, and 
his shrieks of terror pierced even the deafen- 
ing tumult around him. Then came an awful 
crash and blaze that seemed to split earth and 
sky. 

“ Mother of Heaven ! ” shouted an awful 
voice, “ye little fools of babies, what are ye 
doing there ? ” And Rogue Robin, struggling 


124 


Through the Storm. 


manfully with arms and legs, was caught by 
one mighty hand and half -fainting Alma with 
the other, and “ Jack-o’-Lantern ” made a 
dozen great strides forward amid splintering 
trees and falling rocks and then plunged — 
down — down — down with his shrieking cap- 
tives, into the very depths of the earth. 

And still shrieking and struggling desper- 
ately, Rogue Robin found himself dropped 
somewhere in a great stillness and blackness, 
while “ Jack” scratched a match and lit his 
lantern; the lantern, of course, which Rogue 
Robin knew so well. 

“ Whisht, ye little ijit ! ” said “ Jack ” 
fiercely. “ It’s lucky I got ye whin I did; the 
two of yez ’ud ha’ been kilt intirely in another 
minute.” 

Then at last did Rogue Robin find breath 
and speech. 

“ Oh, no, no,” he gasped, catching dire 
threat in “ J ack’s ” words, “ don’t hurt Alma, 
Mr. Jack, please don’t hurt Alma; she’s only 
a girl, a poor little baby girl — don’t — don’t 
kill Alma ! ” 

“Kill her, ye blathering little fool; faith, 
it’s near kilt she seems already ! ” x\nd he 
bent down over the little white figure that 


Through the Storm. 


125 


lay limp at his feet. “ Nay, stop your hoot- 
ing,” he said roughly, as Rogue Robin burst 
into another wail. “ It’s only fainting wid 
fright the little craythur is, and small won- 
der ! ” 

And if Rogue Robin had been capable of 
any further feeling he would have been 
struck dumb 'with astonishment, for “ Jack” 
took the tiny figure tenderly in his great 
arms and laid' it upon the patchwork quilt 
of a small bed that stood at one end of his 
den. A queer den it was, as shown now by 
the light of the lantern swinging from its 
roof. 

Bear and deer-skins covered the earthen 
floor; guns, rods, bags, nets, and knives hung 
upon the walls, while on one side, apart, was 
a shelf carved with rude woodsman’s skill and 
upon it two bark-framed tintypes, a pair of 
small stubby-toed baby-shoes, and, strangest 
of all in this outlaw’s hold, a little statue of 
the Blessed Mother, with a worn Rosary at 
her feet and a battered medal around her 
neck, while below stood a tiny home-made 
table and chair. But Rogue Robin saw none 
of these reassuring signs. 

Flat upon his face, he despairingly aban- 


126 


Through the Storm. 


doned himself to “ tantrums/ 5 as Mam 5 Patsy 
termed a combination of kick, shriek, and. 
fight. 

“ Whisht, ye young divil, whisht ! 55 said 
“ Jack 55 fiercely; while with tender hand he 
bathed Alma’s head and face with water from 
a bucket that stood near by. 

Ah, that snowy baby brow, that tangled 
golden hair, those closed waxen lids, they 
stirred memories that tore “ Jack’s ” wild 
heart even as the storm without was rending 
the rugged depths of the mountain. “ Whisht, 
I say ! ” he continued, as Rogue Robin’s roar 
continued with unabated vigor, “ye’ll scare 
this little craythur to death afore she comes 
back to life, wid yer yelping. Whisht ! ” 

“ Papa ! ” came faintly from Alma’s pale 
lips, and another stab seemed to strike 
through “Jack’s” heart at the word. “0 
my dear papa,” with a half-conscious sob, 
“ take — care — of — your little girl ! ” 

“Yis, yis, shure I will, I will,” answered 
the dreaded “Jack,” a queer shake in his 
husky voice. “ Whisht, ye young omadhaun,” 
in an awful aside to the still shrieking Rogue 
Robin, “ or I’ll murther ye. Here now,” the 
rough voice sinking softly again, “ take a sip 


Through the Storm. 


127 


of this;” and “ Jack,” who had found cup and 
spoon, pressed a few drops of liquor to his 
little patient’s lips. With a shudder the blue 
eyes unclosed and Alma looked up at the 
rough face bending over her. “ Aisy now, 
acushla, another sup; don’t skeer, my purty 
wan, dofflt skeer, ould Shaun wouldn’t hurt 
ye; ye’re as safe as if yer own pappy had ye in 
his arms.” 

Was it Jack who was talking ? — the child- 
catching, boy-boiling, awful Jack ? Rogue 
Robin stopped between two yells and held his 
breath to hear. 

“ Shure it’s a dark, quare place this is, I 
know, but I had to bring ye in here out of the 
storm. Listhen to that, now,” as the crash 
and roar of the tempest came in muffled 
sounds from above. “It’s kilt outright ye’d 
have been, if ye were left out there.” 

“ Robbie, Robbie ! ” cried the little one in 
frightened bewilderment, “ oh, where is Rob- 
bie ? ” 

“Here,” said “Jack,” collaring Rogue Robin 
and swinging him to the bed beside her, “ safe 
and sound as ye are, though it’s a wonder his 
throat isn’t split with the scraching; and look 
at this,” another soothing argument suddenly 


128 Through the Storm . 

striking “ Jack/’ “ mebbe it was ye that lost 
her ? ” 

“ Henriette ! ” cried Alma, starting up 
with a cry of delight, and clasping her lost 
treasure in a rapturous embrace. “ My own 
dear, darling, blind Henriette ! 0 you nice, 

good man to bring her back to me.” 

And Rogue Robin could only sit bolt up- 
right on the patchwork quilt, his brown eyes 
stretched in wonder as Alma, reckless little 
Alma, sprang up, flung her arms about the 
awful “ Jack’s ” neck and kissed him one, two, 
three times. 

“ Och, ye little angel ! ye little angel wid 
me Aily’s eyes and lips and hair,” murmured 
“Jack” brokenly, “ye little angel, who and 
what are ye ? ” 

“ Don’t you know ? ” was the answer smiled 
up into the rugged face, “I am little Alma 
Heatherton.” 

“And this mountain is all her papa’s,” 
tremulously burst forth Rogue Robin, feeling 
the time had come for him to strike in, “ and 
— and — if you hurt her — he’ll — he’ll — kill 
you, Jack-o’-Lantern.” 

But “Jack” neither heard nor heeded the 
direful threat. 


Through the Storm. 


129 


“ Heatherton ! ” he gasped hoarsely, “ his 
child — his” And then the great giant sank 
down on his knees as if felled by the sweet, 
startled look in Alma’s uplifted eyes, and 
burying his face on the pillow, his huge form 
shook with strange, fierce sobs. Ah, the rock 
was rent ! all the hate and passion and bitter- 
ness, hardening around “ Jack’s” heart for 
years, were swept away in .the saving flood, 
freed by the sweet kiss of a child. 

* * * * 

It had been a busy day at Heatherton Hall. 
Fred’s delayed letter from Judson & Judson 
had explained Alma’s unexpected appearance 
to the Lindsay family, but the household had 
been necessarily disturbed by the sudden ar- 
rival, and the domestic changes thereby de- 
manded. 

Kooms and closets had to be vacated, sleep- 
ing apartments rearranged, even Mam’ 
Patsy’s region invaded by the white-capped 
Jean, who had come armed with all the skill 
and implements of a Parisian chef, to find 
himself confronted with a yawning black- 
throated fireplace, and the “ole Yirginny” 
methods of fifty years ago. 

The natural climax came when, at the 


130 


Through the Storm. 


usual dinner hour, Mam’ Patsy stalked into 
Mrs. Lindsay’s room in high dudgeon. 

. “ Ef that air gabbling monkey man is com- 
ing hyah to meddle wif my kitchen, Miss Nell, 
I’se a-gwine home. Nebber seen or heerd ob 
sech foolishness as he hez got down dar; he’ll 
pizen some ob dese ehillun shuah.” And after 
a half-hour’s soothing argument with the 
much-ruffled queen of the kitchen, Mrs. Lind- 
say was called upon to comfort Elise, whose 
nerves had utterly given way under her ef- 
forts to # adjust herself to h&r surroundings. 

“ Ah, madame, truly this solitude was ter- 
rible and the great mountains so high, and 
the forest, ah, mon Dieu ! this forest impas- 
sable, so wild and so dark.” Never could 
Elise support so frightful an exile, though 
la petite mademoiselle was dear to her as her 
own life. And Elise lapsed into hysterical 
grief that neither consolation nor camphor- 
water could assuage. 

What with poor Mrs. Lindsay’s domestic 
distraction, and Mam’ Patsy’s huff, Fred, 
Black Ben, Dickie-bird, and Cal engrossed 
with the Shetland ponies and hounds down in 
the stable, Tess and Lou enraptured with the 
beautiful things they were assisting Elise to 


Through the Storm. 


131 


unpack, it was small wonder that the flight 
of the two little truants was unnoticed for 
hours. So steadily had Rogue Robin been 
kept in bounds for weeks by his terror of the 
mythical Jack, that the family had ceased 
to watch over the once reckless rover. It was 
not until the mountain began to darken un- 
der the gathering frown of the storm cloud 
that the two wanderers were missed. 

“ Shut the windows and doors, mother,” 
warned Fred, bursting excitedly into the 
house. “ The biggest kind of a storm is com- 
ing up — one of your regular mountain 
snorters. It’s black as night to the south; 
Cal says he never saw anything like it, and 
the hounds are crying and shivering. Close- 
reef everything, or this old caboose will go.” 

“ See to the windows, girls, quick !” said his 
mother, who knew what a mountain storm 
was, “ and call in the children. Fred, Robbie, 
Alma, Dickie, where are you, dears ? Come 
right in ! ” 

“ Here is Dickie, he was with Cal and me 
at the stable; we’ve made everything tight 
there; but Robbie and Alma where are 
they ? ” 

“ Out in the garden,” said Mrs. Lindsay, 


132 


Through the Storm. 


with a clear remembrance, amid her day of 
distraction, of the pretty group on the broken 
fountain. 

“ ’Deed they isn’t, then,” said Mam’ Patsy. 
“I ain’t seen hide or hair of Rogue Robin 
since mawning. Thought he was in the house 
with dat little gal and her French nuss.” 

“Non, non, Madame Patsee, non, non,” 
said Elise, in excited denial. “ Mademoiselle 
un the little boy has been with me not at all 
since she took her doll long ago and went to 
the garden. I thought truly she was well and 
safe and sure with so many around her.” 

“ Look for them about the place,” said Mrs. 
Lindsay anxiously. “ Ben, Cal, Fred, Jean, 
quick, find the poor little things before the 
storm bursts.” And amid the sullen mutter 
of thunder and the rising sweep of the wind, 
house, grove, garden, and terrace were 
scoured, while Mam’ Patsy scolded and Elise 
wrung her hands and wept, and Mrs. Lindsay 
grew paler and paler, as the searchers, one by 
one, returned without finding trace of the 
little pair. 

“ They must be hidden in the house some- 
where,” said Fred cheerily, though his face 
belied his words. 


Through the Storm. 


133 


“ We’ve looked everywhere/’ said Tess and 
Lou, “everywhere” 

“ Rogue Robin wouldn’t go off the place, 
I am sure,” said Fred. 

“ Dunno ’bout dat,” said Mam’ Patsy, 
shaking her head; “ he been talking heaps 
’bout dat ar honey-tree up on de mountain.” 

“ Up on the mountain ! ” gasped Mrs. 
Lindsay, whitening to the lips. “ Up on the 
mountain in a storm like this ? Oh, my Rob- 
bie, my Robbie ! ” 

“ Mother, dear mother, don’t — don’t look 
like that,” pleaded Fred, putting his arm 
around her; “ we’ll find him if he is there. 
I’ll start right off.” 

“Yer can’t,” said Cal’s stolid voice behind 
him. “ You nor me, nor no other critter 
could stand agin what’s coming now.” 

For curling and whitening the forest before 
it, like the crest of a giant green billow, the 
wind came down upon them, and they were 
in the storm clouds. Earth and tree and rock 
vanished in an awful lurid gloom. The roar 
of a thousand batteries echoed around them; 
lightning flashed and leaped and quivered on 
every side; the house shook to its foundation 
under the shrieking rush of the wind. 


134 


Through the Storm. 


“ Mon Dieu ! mon Dieu ! it is the end of 
the world ! ” cried Jean, rushing into the 
family group in wild terror. 

“ De jedgement, de jedgement ! ” shouted 
Mam’ Patsy; “ bress God ! Pse found de 
Lord in de waters ob de Jordan, and Pse 
ready. Hallelujah, Lord ! Pse ready ! ” 

“ Mamma, mamma, 0 mamma ! ” wailed 
the children, crowding around her. 

“ Pray, my little ones, pray/’ said the poor 
mother, steadying her quivering lips. 

And it was Tessas sweet voice that led the 
trembling petition: “ Dear Lord, take care of 
us, and keep us near to you whether w'e live 
or die. And 0 good Shepherd, take the poor 
little lambs lost on the mountain into your 
loving arms, and bring them home to us. 
Sweet Mother Mary, you lost your little Boy 
once, and know how our dear mamma feels.” 

“ The — the Rosary, dear,” said her mother, 
feeling that she would break down under 
these heartrending little pleadings; and then 
while the storm raved and tore and crashed 
around them, the little band pressed close 
around their half-fainting mother, and 
prayed to Her who of all creatures has best 
known the depths of mother-love and woe. 


CHAPTER XI. 


A GOLDEN SUNSET. 

For nearly an hour the children’s voices 
rose in trembling petition, while the powers 
of darkness seemed loosened on the moun- 
tain, and the old Hall shook with their 
wrath. 

“ It’s the cuss,” muttered Cal, under his 
breath; “ thought it wouldn’t hold up much 
longer. It’s come back with the Heathertons, 
and prayers an’ angels couldn’t keep it away.” 

Then at last the awful gloom lightened, the 
roar of the thunder died into a distant rum- 
ble, the wind sank into a low sob, and the 
rain came down in floods of repentant tears. 

“We’ll be going now,” said Cal to Fred. 
“ The wust of it is over.” And Fred kissed 
the pale face that had grown pinched and 
haggard and strangely old during the last 
hour, and said tenderly: “ Now, mother dear, 
we’re off to find the children. Cheer up ! 

135 


136 


A Golden Sunset. 


you’ll find the angels have taken care of them, 
and that they are all right,” 

But his heart sank despite his cheer} 
words, for he knew that the angels sometimes 
care for God’s little ones in ways we cannot 
see; hearing their sweet souls unspotted be- 
yond life’s clouds and storms into heaven’s 
light and love. 

“ It will be a long hunt, I’m thinking,” said 
Cal gloomily, as they pressed on over the ter- 
race strewn with wreckage, through the garden, 
where poor little Cupid had toppled over into 
the fountain, and the stream was dashing an 
angry torrent over the rocks and rubbish that 
blocked the way. On and on, struggling as 
best they could over fallen trees and boulders 
and tangles of vine and splintered boughs. 
Great pines and oaks had been uprooted, and 
huge rocks tom from the mountain side 
choked their path. 

Fred’s heart sank lower and lower as he 
scrambled on after Cal, who led the way in 
a grim silence that was more eloquent 
than speech. Suddenly Cal’s practised eye 
caught sight of something tangled and 
twisted round a brier at his feet, a sodden bit 
of rag that Fred would have passed unnoticed. 


A Golden Sunset. 


137 


He picked it up and shook it out. It was a 
wee bit of an embroidered handkerchief. 

“ There’s letters on it,” said Cal, pointing 
to the corner. “ Can you make them out ? ” 

“ Alma Heatherton,” read Fred, while a 
sick pain seemed to strike through his heart. 
“ They must have been here.” And both 
boys looked around them in chilling fear, to 
which they could give no words. For just 
here the storin seemed to have done its worst. 
A great oak lay rent by a thunderbolt from 
crown to Toot, while, loosened by the shock, a 
very avalanche of rocks and earth had fallen 
from above, forming a huge barrier in the 
path. 

“ I guess thar beant much use in going any 
further,” said Cal, with an odd choke in his 
voice. “Ef they was here they must — be — 
thar,” and he nodded to the landslide before 
them. 

“ Great heavens ! don't — don't say that, 
Cal,” said Fred huskily. “ Let's — let's see.” 
And he began passionately to tear away the 
debris. 

“You can't stir them rocks; it will take a 
pick or a crowbar,” said Cal. “ We'll have to 
go back yon and get the nigger and tools. 


138 


A Golden Sunset. 


You see,” said Cal, whose eye had taken in 
the situation slowly but surely, “thar ain’t 
nary house ’roun’ ’bout here whar they could 
been tuk in, and they couldn’t ha’ stood no- 
how ’gin a storm like this yer. Then this 
here slide ud have berried full-grown folks 
much less’n two little critters like ’em.” The 
speaker paused as Fred leaned against a 
tree and sobbed outright. And then, we are 
sorry to say. Cal swore an ugly mountain oath 
that would have made poor little Tess nearly 
faint. “ It is tough,” he growled; “ yer 
needn’t talk to me no more bouten angels. Ef 
thar was any sech they’d a-been looking after 
two poor little young uns a deal betteFn 
this.” 

“ Cal, Cal ! Oh, what can I tell mother ? ” 
cried Fred, thinking of the look he had seen 
on her face at parting. 

“ Don’t tell her nuthing yet; we don’t 
know nuthing. Them angels your sister tells 
me ’bout mout have been ’roun’ a-watching 
’em, though it don’t look like it,” said Cal, 
his dawning faith lighting up again; “ it 
don’t look like it, I must say. Best thing to 
do is just to start Black Ben with his pick to 
work here, and then you and me s’arch higher 


A Golden Sunset. 


139 


up the mountain/ 5 And Cal led the way back 
to the Hall. 

A smoking saddle-horse, white with foam, 
stood at the door. Fred recognized Squire 
White’s big roan. Before he had time to 
wonder what had brought him there at such 
a time, Jean, who had caught sight of the 
returning boys, ran forward to meet them. 

“ Ah, you have not found mademoiselle ! 
You have found no one, no one ! ” he said ex- 
citedly. “ Ah, mon Dieu ! mon Dieu ! and 
it is Monsieur le Colonel who has arrived. 
The horses were struck by the thunderbolt 
and he had to seek shelter until the storm was 
over. He came galloping, ah, heaven ! like a 
madman to the house a moment ago to see if 
mademoiselle was safe. And to hear, ah, mon 
Dieu ! to hear she was lost in the storm. 
Elise has fainted with the fright, and for me, 
for me, I dare not meet monsieur’s eye.” 

“Jean,” called a deep-toned voice, and a 
tall soldierly man strode out on the broken 
porch. “ Where are you ? I want you, quick.” 

“Here, monsieur, here,” faltered Jean, 
stepping forward. “ I was but asking tidings 
of these young gentlemen who have been 
searching.” 


140 


A Golden Sunset. 


“ Searching ! ” The dark eyes of Colonel 
Heatherton flashed quick inquiry into Fred’s 
face, inquiry that his lips could not frame. 
His face was deathly pale; only that, and the 
rigid lines drawn about the mouth, told that 
the strong man was bearing up under a mor- 
tal blow. 

“ Don’t — don’t tell mother, sir,” gasped 
Fred, “ but there’s — been — a landslide where 
— we — found — this.” 

A low groan burst from the father’s lips 
as Fred held out the little handkerchief. 

“My little lamb,” he murmured brokenly, 
“ my one little ewe lamb ! 0 my God ! why 
did I ever turn my steps to this thrice 
accursed spot — for me — for mine ? ” 

“Fred, Fred,” called his mother’s sweet, 
anxious voice, and in a moment she too was 
at the door with Lou and Tess beside her. 
“ Oh, you have heard, you have found some- 
thing ! Tell me quick, quick, my son ! ” 

“ Only — only Alma’s little handkerchief, 
mother dear.” 

“ Where, where ? ” she cried; “ don’t hide 
anything from me, Fred — where ? ” 

“Under the landslide that has doubtless 
crushed them,” answered Colonel Heatherton, 


A Golden Sunset. 


141 


pitiless in his own agony; and then he burst 
forth in fierce, wicked words of rebellious de- 
spair. 

“0 hush, hush!” said the Christian mother, 
her soft eyes blazing as she fixed them upon 
the speaker. “ 0 my God, forgive him, and 
help us to bear this blow ! My little boy ! 
my little boy ! 0 Father in heaven, help me 
to yield my darling into Thy tender hands. 
0 Robbie, Robbie ! never to see him again ! 
never — never ! ” 

“ 0 mamma, mamma, yes, look, look ! ” 
burst forth joyfully from the startled chil- 
dren. 

And for a moment all stood dumb with be- 
wildered rapture, for the sunset rays had 
riven the last tattered storm cloud, the west- 
ern sky was all aglow, and down the steep 
mountain side, now arched by a double rain- 
bow, came a huge, brawny form, striding with 
giant steps over rocks and trees and debris; 
while perched on one shoulder was Alma with 
the rescued Henriette tightly clasped in her 
arms, and astride of the other was Rogue 
Robin, his chubby hand clutching his beareris 
shaggy hair, and both were shouting and 
laughing gleefully as their pretty heads 


142 


A Golden Sunset. 


brushed the glittering rain-drops from the 
trees in golden showers. 

“ Papa ! papa ! ” rang out Alma’s sweet, 
silvery treble, “ there is my own dear papa.” 

“ Mamma, Fred, Dickie ! ” shouted Rogue 
Robin in the proud triumph of a conquered 
terror. “ Here is J ack-o’-Lantern bringing 
us home, nice old Jack, good J ack ! ” 

“Down wid yez,”said “Jack,” as he reached 
the gate and swung his riders gently to the 
ground. “ And mind, if I ever catch the two 
of yez out in a storm like this agin. I’ll ate 
yez in airnest.” 

And then as Alma sprang to her speech- 
less father’s arms, as Rogue Robin was caught 
in rapture to his half-fainting mother’s 
breast, “ J ack-o’-Lantem ” strode away under 
the dripping boughs, his account with the 
Heathertons “ settled ” indeed forever. 

And oh ! wdiat a blissful, bewildering time 
followed ! How the naughty little truants 
were kissed and hugged, and cried and laughed 
over, while the sunbeams twinkled through 
the tearful trees, and the breeze whisked 
away the last tatters of the storm cloud, and 
the western sky shimmered into gold and 
crimson and pink and violet, as if a hundred 


A Golden Sunset. 


143 


rainbows had broken loose from their usual 
proper ways and were frolicking around the 
setting sun. 

“ Oh, it’s just like we had all died and got 
safe through into heaven,” said Tess raptur- 
ously. And Colonel Heatherton’s stern, 
dark eyes softened as he looked at the sweet 
young face; and 'he felt that some new and 
blessed influence had come with these 
strangers to his gloomy home. 

“I prayed, mamma,” the small prodigal 
was explaining to his tearful yet radiant- 
faced mother. “I held Alma tight and I 
prayed hard. And the wind was ’most blow- 
ing us away. And Jack-o’-Lantern came, and 
snatched us both up.” 

“ Oh, God bless him for it, God bless him,” 
murmured the mother brokenly. 

“ And he — he didn’t eat you, Robbie ? ” 
asked Dickie, who stood listening, open-eyed. 

“No,” said Rogue Robin emphatically, 
“no, he didn’t hurt me a bit. And I kicked 
and fought him, too, ’cause I thought he was 
stealing me and Alma. But he just took us 
in to keep us out of the storm. We’d have 
been killed sure enough if he had left us out 
on the rocks. And he has a real nice house 


144 


A Golden Sunset. 


underground, and there’s guns and fishing- 
rods and a Blessed Mother in it; isn’t there, 
Alma ? And he gave us apples, and he can 
make bows and arrows and little chairs and 
tables. Alma sat in his little chair.” 

“And he found my poor lost Henriette,” 
put in Alma, breathless with excitement. “ I 
gave him three kisses for bringing her back 
to me.” 

“ And what must I give him for bringing 
my baby back to me ? ” asked her father, with 
the tender smile that brightened his stern 
face so wonderfully. 

“ You’d best not try to give him nuthing,” 
said Cal’s grim voice at the Colonel’s side. 

“ Eh ? ” said the gentleman, turning 
sharply to the speaker. 

But Cal was altogether too wooden of head 
to be abashed by the dark, piercing soldier 
eye. 

“Mebbe you don’t know that war Long 
Shaun Dermott,” he said slowly. 

“ Shaun Dermott ! 99 echoed Colonel Heath- 
erton. “ Not the good-for-nothing rascal 
that — ■” 

“Ye jailed tin years ago,” continued Cal 
who, however he might fail in other j:!ooks, 


A Golden Sunset. 


145 


knew the mountain and its history — every line. 
“And — and — he ain’t safe ter meddle with 
nohow ever since. Dad don’t skeer quick, and 
he’s skeered of Long Shaun. Must ha’ been 
a powerful angel that made him tote them 
young uns back here safe, fur he’s the wust 
devil on all the Eidge, is Long Shaun; we 
uns all know that.” 

“ Oh, I can’t believe it, I can’t ! ” said Mrs. 
Lindsay. “ He may he bitter and broken- 
hearted, but, oh, not bad — not bad — he was 
too tender to our little ones, Colonel Heather- 
ton, for that.” 

“And he shall be paid for his service, 
madam,” said the Colonel, “ paid well. But I 
have come back here to rule my own place, 
wisely if I can, harshly if I must. If my 
neighbors will not live in peace with me 
there must be war, war to the end.” And 
Mrs. Lindsay sighed as she gathered her little 
flock around her, and hurried them into the 
house, to the big log fire that Black Ben had 
built to keep off the twilight chill. 

This proud, stern man, even in his softest 
hour, stood unbent and unyielding. Ah, the 
work of the angels was not done, even yet ! 


CHAPTER XII. 

“the one ewe lamb” 

Rogue Robin with his sturdy health, his 
stout little shoes, and his six weeks of moun- 
tain training, stood his late adventure man- 
fully and was soon sleeping rosily and com- 
fortably in his downy nest, all fear of Jack-o’- 
Lantern banished forever. But it was a very 
nervous, feverish little Alma that Elise put 
to bed that night, bemoaning as she did so 
the tiny bruised feet, the little brier-torn 
limbs. 

“ Ah, del ! never did I see anything like 
this. Mademoiselle will be surely ill, delicate 
as she has always been; she will be ill, I 
know.” 

And at midnight the old house was roused 
by her alarm, and Alma was found to be ill 
indeed. 

With burning cheeks and star-bright eyes 
she lay in the great four-post bed that had 
146 


“ The One Ewe Lamb 


147 


been her grandmother’s, panting and chatter- 
ing about the honey-tree, and Henriette, and 
Robbie, and going over all the terror of the 
day in her delirium. 

Mrs. Lindsay immediately took the little 
one in care as if she had been her own; but 
her experienced mother-eye saw the danger. 

“ W e must have a doctor, if possible, at 
once,” she said to Colonel Heatherton. 
“ There is one, I believe, at Roxton.” 

“ That drunken fool, Barrows, who nearly 
killed Alma’s mother six years ago,” said the 
Colonel, speaking roughly in his great pain. 
“ I swore then he should never enter my 
house. I would not trust him with my dog. 
I must have the doctor from B — . I will 
telegraph for him to come, at any cost.” And 
then there were quick orders given, and Black 
Ben, mounted on Squire White’s roan, which 
was luckily in the stable, was sent off in hot 
haste to the telegraph station some five miles 
away, with an imperative call to a doctor in 
the nearest town. 

Mrs. Lindsay administered the simple 
household remedies within her reach to the 
little patient, while the Colonel paced the hall 
below in fierce impatience for two hours, when 


148 


‘ The One Ewe Lamb: 


Black Ben returned with the roan crippled, 
a huge knot on his own forehead from a fall, 
and a direful story of the devastation wrought 
by the storm. The telegraph wires were 
down, the roads blocked, and the bridges 
swept away. 

“ Mr. J essup ” (the telegraph operator) 
“ says you couldn’t get no message nor doctor 
from B — unless you got wings. An’ that ar 
hoss stumble down a washout in de road and 
nearly kill hisself and me, too,” added Black 
Ben ruefully, rubbing the knot on his usu- 
ally invulnerable cranium. And Colonel 
Heatherton, who had seen too much of the 
storm to doubt Ben’s assertion, ground out 
an oath between his set teeth and went back 
to the great chamber, where Alma panted and 
moaned in a pitiful struggle that all his 
strength and wealth and power could not 
soothe. 

“ Papa, papa ! oh, come help your little 
girl; save your little girl ! ” she cried, going 
over and over the terrors of the day. “ Oh, 
where is Henriette, my poor blind Hem iette ) 
She is lost in the storm. Robbie, Robbie, 
where are we, Robbie ? Oh, I am afraid 
Papa, papa, come to me, papa ! ” 


“ The One Ewe Lamb. 


149 


And so with piteous cry and sob, the night 
at last wore away, and the gray dawn came 
creeping over the tree-tops, and the sky 
flushed and sparkled, and the storm-swept 
mountain laughed again in the beauty of the 
day. But no hope came with the light. Two, 
three, four times the Colonel sent out his 
messengers. Cal, Fred, Black Ben, clattered 
down the road on Alma’s ponies, only to bring 
back the same story of broken wires and 
bridges and swollen river and stream and tor- 
rent. No such storm had visited that part of 
the country for years. Fences and barns had 
been blown down, houses struck by lightning, 
cattle killed by the score. 

The Colonel’s face grew whiter and sterner 
each moment, as he realized that the mighty, 
resistless forces of nature had defied him, and 
he stood alone like his own mountain in his 
pride and strength. 

True, Mrs. Lindsay was doing her gentle 
best, Mam’ Patsy proving an able second w T ith 
her hot baths and poultices; poor Elise, al- 
most helpless in her grief and fear, could only 
weep and pray, while t'he children gathered in 
the far-off sitting-room and spoke in awe- 
struck whispers of the little playmate the 


150 


‘ ‘ The One Ewe Lamb: 


great death angel was already shadowing 
with his wings. 

So the sad, weary day wore on, until again 
the sunset flamed on the terrace and kindled 
the pine grove, and the violet dusk deep- 
ened on the mountain, and night was coming 
on. 

“ Mamma, mamma, how is she ? ” called 
Lou, as the dear familiar figure appeared at 
the sitting-room door. 

“ Sinking fast, I fear, dear,” was the tearful 
answer. “ She will go to heaven to-night.” 

“ 0 mamma, mamma ! poor darling little 
Alma ! Can’t we do anything, mamma ? ” 

“ Pray, my children, pray; not for her, dear 
little baptized angel, whom God is taking un- 
spotted to Himself, but for her father, her 
poor father, who is striving to stand in his 
own strength where only God can sustain. 
Pray that he will find help and comfort.” 

“ Somebody is coming,” piped Eogue 
Eobin from his perch on the window-sill. 
“ It’s a man on a mule — ” 

“ The doctor ! at last, thank God ! ” said 
Mrs. Lindsay fervently. 

“ Oh, mamma, no — look ! It’s Father 
Xavier,” said Tess. 


“ The One Ewe Lamb.' 


151 


Down the storm-swept path came the tall, 
thin figure that had startled Lou on the ter- 
race two weeks ago. 

Father Xavier, indeed ! Father Xavier, 
mounted on a steady, sure-footed mule that 
could have safely picked its way through the 
ruins of a universe — Father Xavier, whom 
neither tropical tornadoes nor earthquakes 
had ever daunted or turned aside from his 
missionary way — Father Xavier calmly com- 
ing to say his promised Mass at Heatherton 
Hall ! 

For a moment sorrow was forgotten as the 
children trooped out on the porch to meet 
the good priest. 

“ God bless you, God bless you, one and 
all ! ” said Father Xavier as, dismounting, he 
laid his hand in benediction first on one and 
then on another of the little group. “ One, 
two, three, four, five — none of you have blown 
away. I have been anxious about you, very 
anxious, and luckily I was not very far away, 
only at good Michael Brady’s, near Roxton, 
where I was storm-bound while making a sick- 
call, when on my way up here to say your 
Mass. Truly it was a terrible storm. God has 
been very good to protect you.” 


152 


“ The One Ewe Lamb. 


Suddenly Father Xavier paused in his 
cheery speech, and grew pale to the lips. 

“ Is it the doctor ? ” asked a husky voice at 
the door, and Colonel Heatherton, with a gray 
look of despair on his face, stepped out on 
the porch. "For God’s sake come up, then. 
My child is dying ! ” 

“ Colonel Heatherton, this is our friend. 
Father Xavier, a missionary priest,” explained 
Mrs. Lindsay hurriedly. 

“ Not the doctor ! ” said the unhappy 
father, recoiling in his bitter disappointment; 
“ then, then the child is lost.” 

“ No,” said Father Xavier, recovering him- 
self with an effort and speaking in an odd, 
strained voice, “ not lost. I — I — am physician 
as well as priest. I studied and practised for 
years among my Pacific flock. Let me — see 
the little one; I may be of service.” 

“ Come, then,” said the Colonel, grasping 
at any straw in his despair; “ but you can do 
nothing, I fear,” he added hoarsely, “ she is 
dying even now.” 

And he led the way, Father Xavier follow- 
ing through the broad hall, where the last 
dancing rays of sunset seemed to wake the 
dark features of the old Judge’s picture into 


“ The One Ewe Lamb . 


153 


a smile, up the broad stairs lit by the oriel 
window that flamed with the crest of the 
Heathertons, into the great chamber where, 
forty years ago the Colonel’s mother, another 
Alma Heatherton, had in dying blessed her 
two kneeling sons. The windows stood wide 
open that breeze and sunbeam might linger 
lovingly about the little waxen form that 
lay among the pillows — speechless now, and, 
save for the labored heaving of her breast, 
motionless. Mam’ Patsy stood by the bed 
fanning the little sufferer, while the weeping 
Elise bathed the baby brow from which the 
beautiful hair rippled back like a web of 
gold. 

Father Xavier stepped to the bedside, laid 
his hand upon the little one’s brow, and 
looked at her with an infinite tenderness in 
his dark, deep-set eyes. To him, whose heart 
burned with such love for the “ Master ” it 
seemed almost cruel to keep this snow-white 
lamb from His loving arms. 

But the low groan that told of a strong 
man’s agony aroused him. 

“ 0 God, if there be a God,” hoarsely whis- 
pered Colonel Heatherton beside him, “ spare 


154 


“ The One Eioe Lamb . 


her, my one — ewe lamb ! Spare her to my 
desolate heart and home ! ” 

“ I think I can do something for the little 
one,” said Father Xavier quietly, as if he had 
not heard this soul-cry. “ I have a medicine 
that is very powerful in its effects on conges- 
tions like this.” 

He took a curious little flat box of bark 
from his pocket, and opening it showed a 
number of powders in neatly labelled packets. 
<e The necessities of missionary life forced me 
to be pharmacist as well as physician,” he 
continued as if to reassure the despairing 
father, who watched his movements eagerly. 
“ All these powders I prepared myself from 
native roots and barks and I know their 
value. Will you trust the little one to me 
for a few hours ? I must watch beside her 
and administer the medicine myself. At mid- 
night there will be a change.” 

“ I will trust her to you,” said Colonel 
Heatherton with the sudden resolve bom of 
despair. “ Save her, and then ask of me for 
yourself — for your church — what you will.” 

A faint, sad smile flickered for an instant 
on Father Xavier’s lips, but he made no re- 
ply. Dissolving a powder in a glass of water 


“ The One Ewe Lamb. 


155 


that stood near he pressed a spoonful through 
Almazs parted lips, then taking the chair that 
Mrs. Lindsay had placed for him at the bed- 
side, with his hand on the child’s fluttering 
pulse he began his vigil. The sunset faded, 
the violet shadows deepened on the mountain, 
night came on, solemn, silent, starlit, and still 
there seemed no change in t’he little patient. 
Almost motionless the watcher sat at his post, 
stirring only at brief intervals to put the 
medicine again to the livid lips. Something 
of his calm strength seemed infused into 
every breast; the children went quietly to 
bed, Mrs. Lindsay and Elise retired tem- 
porarily for much-needed rest, Mam’ Patsy 
dozed in her big “ nussing 99 chair in a far cor- 
ner. The Colonel alone was restless as a tor- 
tured spirit, pacing hall and corridor with 
long martial strides, returning every few min- 
utes to gaze with burning eyes at the idol 
that seemed slipping from his hold, and then 
turning away, as if the sight maddened him, 
to continue his despairing march up and 
down the old house, that seemed echoing with 
strange footfalls and whispers to-night. Now 
it seemed his mother’s voice, calling softly 
from the stair; now his father, the old Judge, 


156 


“ The One Ewe Lamb. 


seemed breathing as he passed his portrait ; 
now it was his brother, who with arms en- 
twined about his neck was whispering the old 
boyish secrets into his ear. 

“ I am going mad, I am going mad,” said 
the Colonel. “What has roused all these 
ghosts of the past to-night ? unless — unless 
the last of the race is passing away ? ” 

And then the great clock on the stair 
struck midnight, and with an icy fear at his 
heart the wretched father strode back to the 
sick-room to find the watcher on his knees 
by the little motionless form — weeping like 
a child. 

“ Is it death ? ” gasped the Colonel. 

“ No, no, not death, but life,” said Father 
Xavier, rising and facing him with solemn 
joy irradiating his features. “ Listen to her 
breathing. The crisis has passed. In God’s 
name I give you back your child. May 
she lead you to heaven, my dear, dear 
brother.” 

“ Brother ! ” Colonel Heatherton stag- 
gered back speechless, as at last he recognized 
face, voice, form, that in his anguish he had 
scarcely noticed. “ Joe ! ” he whispered at 
last. “Is it Joe, or some blessed spirit who 


“ The One Eive Lamb. 


157 


brings forgiveness in his name ? Joe ! living, 
and — a priest ! ” 

“It is Joe,” said Father Xavier, the tears 
running down his furrowed face as he clasped 
the hands outstretched to him. “ Here where 
we knelt long ago, at our dying mother’s side, 
let us kneel again together and thank God for 
this blessed hour, for the sweet young life 
given back to us. I claim my promised re- 
ward: your heart, your soul, your better, 
nobler, holier — my brother — my brother ! 99 


CHAPTER XIII. 


CONCLUSION. 

There was a quiet thanksgiving Mass next 
morning in the big parlor, and around the 
hastily arranged altar gathered a little band 
with hearts full of gratitude and eyes dim 
with happy tears, for Alma was sleeping 
softly, all danger past ; and her father’s 
proud, strong heart had opened at last to 
God’s light and love. 

“ Make peace on the mountain, Joe,” 
Colonel Heatherton had said to his brother, 
“ and take it henceforth as your own.” But 
Father Xavier only shook his head with a 
radiant smile. “Joe Heatherton died to 
name, fortune, family, thirty years ago,” he 
replied. “ He only lived again in answer to 
the brother’s soul-cry, to which he could not 
close ear or heart. But I will make peace for 
you and yours if I can.” 

Meanwhile the wonderful tidings that 
158 


Conclusion. 


159 


“ Joe” Heatherton had returned spread like 
wild-fire over the mountain. 

Family history, being the only kind ever 
heard in that locality, was known well. 
“ Young Joe,” had been a prime favorite in 
his boyhood and youth, and the story of his 
banishment and disinheritance had been told 
and retold over smoky cabin-fires, and handed 
down from father to son, until the prejudice 
against the master of Heatherton had grown 
more and more bitter, year by year; a preju- 
dice which Colonel Heatherton, proud, stern, 
and masterful, had as sheriff and magistrate 
done much to increase. Wild were the 
rumors rife on the mountain regarding 
“ young Joe’s” reappearance. Some whis- 
pered he had been roused from a death sleep 
by the storm and it -was only his ghost that 
had revisited the mountain; others, that he 
had been kept locked in some dreadful prison 
or madhouse during all these years; others 
hinted darkly at magic or witchcraft. 

But all rumors were quelled when “ Father 
Xavier,” grave, kind, and gentle, made his 
way over the mountain calmly, regardless of 
blockades or barriers, visiting huts and cabins 
and caves, recalling old times and old friend- 


160 


Conclusion. 


ships, seating himself on barrels, rocks, or 
logs as the case might be, patting the chil- 
dren’s tangled heads and telling the boys 
wonderful stories of life in the far-off lands 
beyond the sea. 

“He hez been a preacher all these years, 
hez Mr. Joe,” said one grim old moonshiner 
as he and his mates compared notes in the 
gloaming. 

“And he wuz telling our Pete to-day that 
he come very near being roasted alive out 
yon,” said another. 

“ An’ he guv our Maria the pootiest thing 
to wear ’roun’ her neck you ever see. A 
medal he called it, and she’s that tickled she 
can’t hardly sleep.” 

For days Father Xavier walked the heights 
scattering the seeds of peace and good-will; 
and then Cal, one bright evening, took his 
way from cabin to cabin, regardless of creed, 
race, or color, and announced there would be 
“Mass” at Heatherton Hall next day, and 
Father Xavier would be glad to have all his 
old and new friends come. 

Much perplexed consultation followed on 
the Eidge; a few who seemed to understand 
curtly remarked it was “no place for divils 


Conclusion. 


161 


like thim.” But when rumor came that Long 
Shaun, who had been invisible to his mates 
for days, was going, that Cal Jones and his 
father were to be there, that Mike Brady 
and Pete Finnegan, two of the most notorious 
roughs for miles around, had promised Father 
Xavier to attend, curiosity and interest over- 
came prejudice and distrust. 

So it happened on a beautiful Sunday 
morning, two weeks after the storm, there was 
an odd gathering at Heatherton Hall. Em- 
bowered in sumach and golden-rod and 
feathery masses of green, stood the little 
altar, decked with quaint old candelabra 
and vases, and glowing with starry tapers. 
And when, clad in strange, shining vestments, 
“Mr. Joe” stood before them; when pure 
girlish voices, upborne by Cal’s deep tenor, 
arose in sweet, solemn harmony; when 
Colonel Heatherton was seen kneeling on one 
side of the altar, and Long Shaun, with half 
a dozen spirits equally as fierce, was dis- 
covered bowed in humble prayer near the 
doorway — a hush of breathless amazement 
fell on the congregation that was not broken 
until the mysterious rite was ended. 

Then Father Xavier turned to them and 


162 


Conclusion. 


spoke in sweet, simple words of the “ Father 
in heaven” who wished all His children to live 
in this beautiful world in peace and love; that 
he had come as His messenger among them, 
and hoped to heal all the wounds and banish 
all the bitterness of the past. That his 
brother had determined to give honest work 
to them all, the old mines were to be opened, 
new roads built, there would be labor and pay 
on the mountain henceforth for all willing to 
live according to order and law. And as a 
pledge of this friendly feeling the Heather- 
tons invited them to a feast in the garden to- 
day, where the little mistress of Heatherton 
would welcome them in her father’s name. 
And still rather dazed, the stolid-faced guests 
were guided, by the merry little Lindsays to 
the terraced garden, where long tables of 
board, covered with the Heatherton damask, 
fairly groaned with the good things prepared 
in harmony by Mam’ Patsy and Black Ben 
and Elise and Jean; while seated in a big gar- 
den-chair banked with pillows and cushions 
Alma — a pale, starry-eyed little earth angel — 
gleefully greeted her father’s guests. 

And thus the light of love dawned at last 
over the mountain, brightening year after 


Conclusion. 


168 


year under Father Xavier’s gentle influence; 
for a little chapel was soon built in the glen 
where Long Shaun had watched over his be- 
loved graves, and the sanctuary lamp gleamed 
like a star through the shadows, and guided 
the sinful and sorrowing to the “ Master’s ” 
feet. Every summer tin Lindsays, old and 
young, are welcomed again to Heatherton, 
where Rogue Robin and Alma wander fear- 
lessly over the mountain, now echoing with 
the busy hum of life. 

Colonel Heatherton had kept his word: 
the mines were opened, and a railroad cuts 
across the Ridge, and there is work and pay 
for all. 

But there are still sweet nooks, where the 
wild plums ripen and the grape-vines swing, 
and the honey-tree hides as of yore. Best of 
all, the children love the shaded path that 
leads to the glen, where beside his chapel 
Father Xavier lives in a little vine-wreathed 
cottage, kept in spick and span order by a 
queer, wild-eyed old housekeeper, whom the 
mountain still knows as Meg, though the gen- 
tle pastor who has tamed and soothed her 
broken heart calls her “ his good Margaret.” 

Here, too, is Cal, sturdy and active — Father 


164 


Conclusion . 


Xavier’s butler, hostler, driver, and right- 
hand in general. 

Here, too, is the grizzled old sexton, Shaun, 
whose life is passed now in peace and prayecr 
by his beloved graves. But he rouses always 
as the silvery call echoes merrily down the 
mountain slope: “We are coming. It’s Rob- 
bie and me. Where are you? Jack, Jack, 
Jack ! Come play with us, J ack-o’-Lantern ! ” 


PRINTED BY BENZTGER BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 


STANDARD CATHOLIC BOOKS 

PUBLISHED BY 

BENZIGER BROTHERS, 

Cincinnati: NEW YORK: Chicago: 

343 Main St. 36 and 38 Barclay St. 211-213 Madison St. 


Abandonment ; or, Absolute Surrender of Self to Divine 
Providence. By Rev. J. P. Caussade, S.J. 32 mo, net , o 40 

Altar Boy’s Manual, Little. Illustrated. 32010, %o 25 

American Author Series of Catholic Juveniles. i6mo, cloth. 
The Blissylvania Post-Office. By M. A. Taggart. i6mo, o 50 
Three Girls and Especially One. By M. A. Taggart. i6mo, o 50 
By Branscome River. By M. A. Taggart. i6mo, o 50 

The Madcap Set at St. Anne's. Bv M. J. Brunowe. i6mo, o 50 
Tom’s Luck-Pot. By Mary T. Waggaman. i6mo, o 50 
An Heir of Dreams. By S. M. O’Malley. i6mo, o 50 

A Summer at Woodville. By Anna T. Sadlier. i6mo, o 50 
Analysis of the Gospels. Lambert. i2mo, net , i 25 

Art of Profiting by Our Faults, according to St. Francis 
de Sales. By Rev. J. Tissot. 321110, net , o 40 

Aser the Shepherd. By Marion Ames Taggart. i6mo, net, o 35 
Bezaleel. By Marion Ames Taggart. i6mo, net , o 35 

Bible, The Holy, nmo, cloth, o 80 

Birthday Souvenir, or Diary. With a Subject of Meditation 
for Every Day. By Mrs. A. E. Buchanan. 32mo, o 50 

Blessed Ones of 1888. Illustrated. i6mo, o 50 

Blossoms of the Cross. Dedicated to My Companions in 
Suffering for their Pious Entertainment. By Emmy Giehrl. 
i2mo, cloth, 1 25 

Bone Rules ; or, Skeleton of English Grammar. By Rev. J. B. 

Tabb. i6mo, o 50 

Boys’ and Girls’ Mission Book. By the Redemptorist 
Fathers. 48mo, $0 35 

Breve Compendium Theologize Dogmatics et Moralis una 
cum aliquibus Notionibus Theologiae Canonicse Liturgiae, 
Pastoralis et Mysticas, ac Philosophiae Christianae. Auctore 
P. J. Berthier, M.S. Quarta editio, aucta et emendata. 
8vo, cloth, 0 net , 2 50 

BUGG, Lelia Hardin. Correct Thing for Catholics. i6mo, o 75 

A Lady. Manners and Social Usages. i6mo, o 75 

Prodigal’s Daughter, The, and Other Stories, nmo, 1 00 


I 


Catechism Explained, The. An Exhaustive Exposition of the 
Christian Religion, with Special Reference to the Present 
State of Society and the Spirit of the Age. A Practical 
Manual for the use of the Preacher, the Catechist, the Teacher, 
and the Family. From the original of Rev. Francis Spirago. 
Edited by Rev. Richard F. Clarke, S.J. 8vo, cloth, 
720 pages, net , 2 50 

Canonical Procedure in Disciplinary and Criminal Cases 
of Clerics. By Rev. F. Droste. Edited by the Right 
Rev. S. G. Messmer, D.D. New edition. i2tno, net , 1 50 

Cantata Catholica. Containing a large collection of Masses, 
etc. Hellebusch. Oblong 4to, net , 2 00 

Catechism of Familiar Things. Their History and the Events 
which led to their Discovery. Illustrated. 12010, *1 00 


Catholic Belief. i6mo. 

Paper, *0.25; 25 copies, 4.25; 50 copies, 7.50; 100 copies, 12 50 

Cloth, *0.50; 25 copies, 8.50 ; 50 copies, 15x0 ; 100 copies, 25 00 

Catholic Ceremonies and Explanation of the Ecclesiastical 
Year. By the Abbe Durand. With 96 illustrations. 241x10. 
Paper, *0.25 ; 25 copies, 4.25 ; 50 copies, 7.50 ; 100 copies, 12 50 

Cloth, *0.50; 25 copies, 8 50; 50 copies, 15.00; 100 copies, 25 00 

Catholic Father, The. A Manual of Instructions and Devo- 
tions. By Bishop Egger. 640 pages, thin paper, 321110, to 75 
Catholic Home Annual. *0 25 

Catholic Home Library. 10 volumes, umo, each, 045 

Catholic Worship. Brennan. Paper, *0.15 ; per 100, 900 

Cloth, *0.25 ; per ic>o, 15 00 

Catholic Teaching for Children. By Winifride Wray. 

i6mo, cloth, o 40 

Charity the Origin of Every Blessing. i6mo, o 75 

Child of Mary. A Complete Prayer-Book for Children of 

Mary. 321110, ' Jo 60 

Child’s Picture Prayer-Book. Illustrated in colors. Small 
32mo, to 25 

Child’s Prayer-Book of the Sacred Heart. 321110, Jo 25 

Christian Anthropology. By Rev. J. Thein. 8vo, net , 2 50 

Christian Father, The. Paper, *0.25 ; per 100, 12 50 

Cloth, *0.35 ; per 100, 21 00 

Christian Mother, The. Paper, *0.25 ; per 100, 12 50 

Cloth, *0.35 ; per 100, 21 00 


Christian Philosophy. A Treatise on the Christian Soul. By 
the Rev. John T. Driscoll, S.T.L. i 2 mo, fl net , 1 25 

Christ in Type and Prophecy. By Rev. A. J. Maas, S.J. 
2 vols., i2mo, net , 4 00 

Circus-Rider’s Daughter, The. A novel. By F. v. Brackel. 

I2D10, I 25 

College Boy, A. A Story. By Anthony Yorke. i 2 mo, 
cloth, o 85 

Comedy of English Protestantism, The. Edited by A. F. 

Marshall, B.A. Oxon. 121110, net , o 50 

Compendium Sacr^s Liturgi^e Juxta Ritum Romanum. 
Wapelhorst, O.S.F. 8vo, net , 2 50 


2 


Confessional, The. By Rt. Rev. A. Roegel. || net, i oo 

Connor D’Arcv’s Struggles. A novel. By Mrs. W. M. 
Bertholds. i2mo, x 25 

Counsels of a Catholic Mother to Her Daughter. i6mo, o 50 

Crown of Mary. The. A Complete Manual of Devotion for 
Clients of the Blessed Virgin. 321210, %o 60 

Crown of Thorns, The ; or, The Little Breviary of the Holy 
Face. 32010. o 40 

Data of Modern Ethics Examined, The. By Rev. John J. 

Ming, S.J. nmo, net , 2 00 

De Goesbriand, Right Rev. L. Jesus the Good Shepherd. 

i6mo, net , o 75 

The Labors of the Apostles, nmo, net , 1 00 

Devotions and Prayers by St. Alphonsus. A Complete 
Prayer-Book. i6mo, ti 00 


Devotions and Prayers for the Sick-Room. 

A. Krebs, C.SS.R. nmo, cloth, 

Dion and the Sibyls. A classic novel. By Miles 
Keon. i2mo, 

Dorsey, Ella Loraine. Pickle and Pepper, nmo, 

The Taming of Polly. i2tno, 

Easy Language Lessons, nmo, 

Egan, Maurice F. The Vocation of Edward Conway. 


By Rev. JOS. 
net , r 00 
Gerald 
1 25 
O 85 
o 85 

0 50 
A novel. 

1 25 


iamo, 

— Flower of the Flock, and Badgers of Belmont, nmo, 

— How They Worked Their Way, and Other Stories. 

— The Boys in the Block. 241120, leatherette. 

— A Gentleman. i6mo, 


o 85 
o 75 
o 25 
° 75 

English Reader. By Rev. Edward Connolly, S.J. nmo, *1 25 
Epistles and Gospels. 32m o, o 25 

Eucharistic Christ, The. Reflections and Considerations on 
the Blessed Sacrament. By Rev. A. Tesniere. 12m o, net, 100 
Eucharistic Gems. A Thought About the Most Blessed 
Sacrament for Every Day. By Rev. L. C. Coelenbier. 
i6mo, o 75 

Examination of Conscience for the use of Priests who are 
Making a Retreat. By Gaduel. 321110, net , o 30 

Explanation of the Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doc- 
trine. By Rev. Thomas L. Kinkead. i2ino, net y 1 00 

Explanation of the Commandments, Illustrated. By 
Rev. H. ROLFUS, D.D. With a Practice and Reflection on 
each Commandment, by Very Rev. F. Girardey, C.SS.R. 
i 5 mo, o 75 

Explanation of the Gospels. Illustrated. 24mo. 

Paper, *0.25 ; 25 copies, 4.25 ; 50 copies, 7.50 ; 100 copies, 12 50 

Cloth, *0.50; 25 copies, 8.50; 50 copies, 15.00 ; 100 copies, 25 00 

Explanation of the Holy Sacraments, Illustrated. By 
Rev. H. ROLFUS, D.D. With a Reflection, Practice, and 
Prayer on each Sacrament, by Very Rev. F. Girardey, 
C.SS.R. i6mo, o 75 

Explanation of the Mass. By Father von Cochem. nmo, 1 25 


Explanation of the Our Father and the Hail Mary. 

Adapted by Rev. Richard Brennan, LL.D. i6mo, o 75 
Explanation of the Salve Regina. By St. Alphonsus 
Liguori. i6mo, o 75 

Explanation of the Prayers and Ceremonies of the 
Mass. Illustrated. By Rev. D. I. Lanslots, O.S.B. With 
22 full-page illustrations, umo, 1 25 

Extreme Unction. Paper, *0.10; per 100, 5 00 

Fabiola. Illustrated Edition. By Cardinal Wiseman, umo, o 90 

Edition de luxe, *6 00 


Fabiola’s Sisters. (Companion volume to “Fabiola.”) By 
A. C. Clarke. Three editions in three weeks, umo, o go 

Finn, Rev. Francis J., S.J. Percy Wynn, nmo, o 85 


Tom Playfair, umo, o 85 

— Harry Dee. nmo, o 85 

Claude Lightfoot. i2mo, o 85 

Ethelred Preston, nmo, o 85 

That Football Game. i2mo, o 85 

Mostly Boys, umo, o 85 

My Strange Friend. 24mo, leatherette. o 25 

First Communicant’s Manual. Small 32mo, $0 50 

Five O’clock Stories. i6mo, o 75 

Flowers of the Passion. Thoughts of St. Paul of the Cross. 
By Rev. Louis Th. de J£sus-Agonisant. 321310, *0.50 ; 
per 100, 25 00 

Following of Christ, The. By Thomas a Kempis. 

With Reflections. Small 321310, cloth, $0 50 

Without Reflections. Small 32mo, cloth, Jo 45 

Edition de luxe. Illustrated. French sheep, gilt edges, +1 50 

Four Gospels, The. 32mo, net , o 10 

Francis de Sales, St. Introduction to a Devout Life. 
32mo, Jo 50 

Guide for Confession and Communion. Translated by 

Mrs. Bennett-Gladstone. 32mo, to Go 

Maxims and Counsels for Every Day. 321110, net , o 35 

Game of Quotations from Catholic American Authors. 
Series I., net , o 25 

Series II., net , o 25 

Series III., net , o 25 


General Principles of the Religious Life. By Very Rev. 
Boniface F. Verheyen, O.S.B. 32 mo, net , o 30 

Glories of Divine Grace. From the German of Dr. M. Jos. 
Scheeben, by a Benedictine Monk. i 2 mo, net , 1 50 

Glories of Mary. By St. Alphonsus. 2 vols. nmo, net , 2 50 
God Knowable and Known. Ronayne. i 2 mo, net , 1 25 

Grou, Rev. J., S.J. The Characteristics of True Devotion. A 
new edition, by Rev. Samuel H. Frisbee, S.J. i6mo, net , o 75 

The Interior of Jesus and Mary. Edited by Rev. Samuel 

H. Frisbee, S.J. i6mo, 2 vols., net, 2 00 

Goffine’s Devout Instructions. Illustrated Edition. Preface 
by His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons. 8vo, doth, 1 C o 

10 copies, 7.50; 25 copies, 17.30 ; 50 copies, 33 50 


4 


“ Golden Sands.” Books by the Author of : 

Golden Sands. Little Counsels for the Sanctification 


Happiness of Daily Life. 32mo, 3 volumes, each, 
Book of the Professed. 32010, 


Vol. I. 

Vol. II. 

Vol. III. 

Prayer. 32ino, 

The Little Book of Superiors. 
Spiritual Direction. 32010 


Each with a steel-plate Frontispiece. 


32 mo, 


and 
o 50 


) net, 
net, 
net, 
net, 
net , 
net, 


75 

60 

60 

40 

60 

60 


Little Month of May. 32010, flexible cloth, *0.25 ; per 100, ’ 15 00 
Little Month of the Poor Souls. 32010, flexible cloth, *0.25 ; 

per 100, 15 00 

Hints on Letter- Writing. 16010, *0 60 


Hand-book of the Christian Religion. By Rev. W.Wilmers, 


S.J. Edited by Rev. James Conway, S.J. 12010, net , 150 
Happy Year, A. Short Meditations for Every Day. By Abb£ 
Lasausse. 12010, net, 1 00 

Heart of St. Jane Frances de Chantal, The. Thoughts 
aod Prayers. 32010, net , o 40 

Help for the Poor Souls in Purgatory. Small 32010, Jo 50 
Herchenbach, W. Armorer of Solingen, The. i6mo, o 45 

Wroogfully Accused. i6mo, o 45 

Inundation, The. i6mo, o 45 

Hidden Treasure ; or, The Value and Excellence of the Holy 
Mass. By St. Leonard of Port-Maurice. 32010, o 50 
History of the Catholic Church. By Dr. H. Brueck. 

2 vols., 8vo, net , 3 00 

History of the Catholic Church. Adapted by Rev. Richard 
Brennan, LL.D. With 90 illustratioos. 8vo, 150 


History of the Mass and Its Ceremonies in the Eastern and 
Western Church. By Rev.JOHN O’Brien, A. M. nmo , net, 1 25 
History of the Protestant Reformation in England and 
Ireland. Written in 1824-1827. By William Cobbett. 
Revised, with Notes and Preface, by Francis Aidan 
Gasquet, D.D., O.S.B. 12010, cloth, net, 0.50; paper, net, o 25 
Holy Face of Jesus, The. A Series of Meditations on the 
Litany of the Holy Face. 32010, o 40 

Holy Gospels, The Four. 32010, net, o 10 

Hours Before the Altar ; or, Meditations on the Holy 
Eucharist. By Mgr. de la Bouillerie. 32010, o 50 

How to Comfort the Sick. Especially adapted for the 
Instruction, Consolation, and Devotion of Religious Persons 
devoted to the Service of the Sick. By Rev. JOS. Aloysius 
Krebs, C.SS.R. 12010, cloth. net, 1 00 

How to Get On. By Rev. Bernard Feeney. 12010, 1 00 

How to Make the Mission. By a Domioican Father. 16010, 
paper, *0.10 ; per 100, 5 00 

Hunolt’s Sermons. Complete Unabridged Edition. Translated 
from the original German edition of Cologne, 1740, by the 
Rev. J. Allen, D.D. i2Vols.,8vo, net, 30 00 

Hunolt’s Short Sermons. Abridged Edition. Arranged for 
all the Sundays of the Year. 5 vols., 8vo, [net, 10 00 


5 


Idols; or. The Secret of the Rue Chaussee d'Antin. A novel. 

By Raoul de Navery. mno, 125 

Illustrated Prayer-Book for Children. 32100, to 25 

Imitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. After the Model of 

the Imitation of Christ. Translated by Mrs. A. R. Bennett- 
Gladstone. Small 32010, to 50 

Edition de luxe, with fine illustrations. Persian calf, gilt 
edges. 32mo, +1 5° 

Imitation of the Sacred Heart. Arnoudt. i6mo, +1 25 


Indulgences, Practical Guide to. By Rev. P. M. Bernad, 

0. M.I., o 75 

In Heaven We Know Our Own. Rev. Blot, S.J. i6mo, o 60 

Instructions for First Communicants. Rev. Dr J. Schmidt. 

Small 12100, net, o 50 

Instructions on the Commandments and the Sacraments. 
By St. Liguori. 32010. Paper, 0.25 ; per 100, 12 50 

Cloth, 0.35 ; per 10c, 21 00 

Introduction to a Devout Life. By St. Francis de Sales. 

Small 321210, cloth, to 50 

Jack Hildreth Among the Indians. Edited by Marion Ames 
Taggart. A series of adventure stories. 

1. Winnetou, the Apache Knight, nmo, o 85 

2. The Treasure of Nugget Mountain, nmo, o 85 


Keller, Rev. Dr. Joseph. The Blessed Virgin. Anecdotes and 
Examples to Illustrate the Honor due to the Blessed Mother 
of God. i6mo, cloth, o 75 

The Sacred Heart. Anecdotes and Examples to Illustrate 

the Honor and Glory due to the Most Sacred Heart of Our 
Lord. i6mo, cloth. o 75 

The Most Holy Sacrament. Anecdotes and Examples to 

Illustrate the Honor and Glory due to the Most Holy Sacra- 
ment of the Altar. i6mo, cloth, o 75 

St. Anthony. Anecdotes Proving the Miraculous Power of 

St. Anthony of Padua. i6mo, cloth, o 75 

Key of Heaven. Large Type. With Epistles and Gospels. 

Small 32mo, ~o 40 

Klondike Picnic, A. Bv Eleanor C. Donnelly, nmo, o 85 

Konings' Theoloc-IA Moralis. Novissimi Ecclesias Doctoris 
S. Alphonsi. Editio septima, auctior, et novis curis expolitior, 
curante Henrico Kupkr, C.SS.R. Two vols. in one, half 
morocco, net, 4 00 

Commentarium in Facultates Apostolicas. New, greatly 

enlarged edition, nmo, net , 2 25 

General Confession Made Easy. 32:020, flexible, *0 15 

Legends and Stories of the Holy Child Jesus from Many 
Lands. Collected by A. Fowler Lutz. x6mo, o 75 

Let no Man Put Asunder. A novel. By Josephine Marie. 
i2mo, x 00 


Life and Acts of Leo XIII. Illustrated. 8vo, 1 50 

Life of St. Aloysius Gonzaga. Richly illustrated. 8vo, net, 2 50 
Life of St. Aloysius Gonzaga. Edited by Rev. J. F. X. 

O’Conor, S.J. 12010, net, o 75 

Life of St. Anthony. See St. Anthony. 


6 


Life of tiie Blessed Virgin, Illustrated. Adapted by Rev. 
Richard Brennan, LL.D. With fine half-tone illustrations. 


i2mo, i 25 

Life of St. Catharine of Sienna. By Edward L. Ayme, 
M.D. i2mo, cloth, *r. 00 

Life of Christ, Illustrated. By Father M. v. Cochem. 

With fine half-tone illustrations. 12010, 125 

Life of Father Charles Sire. 12010, net, 1 00 

Life of St. Clare of Montefalco. 12010, net , o 75 

Life of Ven. Mary Crescentia Hoss. 12010, net , 1 25 

Life of St. Francis Solanus. 16010, net , o 50 

Life of St. Chantal. See under St. Chantal, »<?/, 4 00 

Life of Most Rev. John Hughes. 12010, net , o 75 

Life of Father Jogues. 12010, net , o 75 

Life of Mlle. le Gras, nmo, net , 1 25 

Life of Right Rev. J. N. Neumann, D.D. 121110, net , 1 25 

Life of Fr. Francis Poilvaciie. 32010, paper, || net, o 20 

Life of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ aod of His 

Blessed Mother. 60, illustrations. Cloth, net, 5 00 


Life, Popular, of St. Teresa of Jesus. 12100, net , o 75 

Life of Sister Anne Katharine Emmerich of the Order of 
St. Augustine. By Rev. Thomas Wegener, O.S.A. From 
the French by Rev. Francis X. McGowan, O.S.A. Svo, 
cloth, net , 1 50 


LlGUORl, St. Alphonsus de. Complete Ascetical Works of, 

Centenary Edition. Edited by Rev. EUGENE Grimm, C.SS.R. 

Price, per vol., net , 1 25 

Each book is complete in itself, and any volume will be sold 

separately. 

Preparation for Death. 

Way of Salvation and of 
Perfection. 

Great Means of Salvation 
and Perfection. 

Incarnation, Birth, and In- 
fancy of Christ. 

The Passion and Death of 
Christ. 

The Holy Eucharist. 

The Glories of Mary, 2 vols. 

Victories of the Martyrs. 

Linked Lives. A novel. By Lady Douglas 
Little Child of Mary. Large 48mo, 


True Spouse of Christ, 2 
vols. 

Dignity and Duties of the 
Priest. 

The Holy Mass. 

The Divine Office. 

Preaching. 

Abridged Sermons for all the 
Sundays. 

Miscellany. 

Betters, 4 vols. 

Letters and General Index. 

8vo, 1 50 

to 35 


Little Folks’ Annual. o 05 

Little Manual of St. Anthony. 32mo, cloth, to 60 

Lourdes. By R. F. Clarke, S.J. i6mo, illustrated, o 75 

Loyal Blue and Royal Scarlet. A Story of ’76. By Marion 
Ames Taggart, nmo, cloth, o 85 

Manifestation of Conscience. Confessions and Communions 
in Religious Communities. 32mo, net, o 50 

Manual of Indulgenced Prayers. Small 321110, to 40 


7 


Manual of the Holy Eucharist. Conferences and Pious 
Practices, with Devotions for Mass, etc. Prepared by Rev. F. 
X. Lasance, Director of the Tabernacle Society of Cincinnati. 
Oblong 241110, to 75 

Manual of the Holy Family. Prayers and Instructions for 
Catholic Parents. 32010, cloth, to 60 

Marcella Grace. A novel. By Rosa Mulholland. With 
illustrations after original drawings. i2tno, 1 25 

Marine Corolla. Poems by Rev. Edmund Hill, C.P. 

i2mo, 1 25 

Marriage. By Very Rev. Pere Monsabre, O.P. From the 
French, by M. Hopper. 12010, net , 1 00 


May Devotions, New. Reflections on the Invocations of the 
Litany of Loretto. 12010, |j net, 1 00 

McCallen, Rev. James A., S.S. Sanctuary Boy’s Illustrated 
Manual. 12010, net , o 50 

Office of Tenebrae. 12010, \\net, o 50 

Means of Grace, The. A Complete Exposition of the Seven 
Sacraments, of the Sacramentals, and of Prayer, with a 
Comprehensive Explanation of the “Lord’s Prayer” and the 
“Hail Mary.” By Rev. Richard Brennan, LL.D. With 180 
full-page and other illustrations. 8vo, cloth, 2.50 ; gilt, 
edges, 3.00 ; Library edition, half levant, 3 50 

Meditations (Baxter) for Every Day in the Year. By Rev. 

Roger Baxter, S.J. Small umo, net, 1 25 

Meditations (Chaignon, S.J.) for the Use of the Secular 
Clergy. Bv Father Chaignon, S.J. From the French, by 
Rt. Rev.L, de Goesbriand, D.D. 2 vols., 8vo, net, 4 00 

Meditations (Hamon’S) for All the Days of the Year. 
By Rev. M. Hamon, S.S. From the French, by Mrs. Anne 
R. Bennett-Gladstone. 5 vols., i6mo, cloth, gilt top, each 
with a Steel Engraving, net , 5 00 

Meditations on the Month of Our Lady. From the Italian, 
by Rev. J. F. Mullaney, LL.D. Oblong i6mo, o 75 

Meditations on the Last Words from the Cross. By 
Father Charles Perraud. With an introduction by Cardinal 
Perraud. Translated at St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie, 
N. Y. 24100, cloth, \net, o 50 

Meditations on the Passion of Our Lord. By a Passionist 
Father. 32m o, *0.40 ; per 100, 20 00 

Meditations (Perinaldo) on the Sufferings of Jesus Christ. 

i2mo, net, o 75 

Meditations (Vercruysse), for Every Day in the Year, on the 
Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 vols., net , 2 75 

Miss Erin. A novel. By M. E. Francis, nmo, 1 25 

Mission Book, Boys’ and Girls’. 48010, to 35 

Mission Book of the Redemptorist Fathers. 32010, cloth, to 50 
Mission Book for the Married. By Very Rev. F. Girardey, 
C.SS.R. 32010, to 50 

Mission Book for the Single. By Very Rev. F. Girardey, 
C.SS.R. 32010, , to 50 

Mistress of Novices, The, Instructed in Her Duties. 12010, 
cloth, net, o 75 


8 


Moments Before the Tabernacle. By Rev. Matthew 
Russell, S.J. 241110, net, o 40 

Monk’s Pardon. A Historical Romance. By Raoul de 
Navery. i2mo, 1 25 

Month of the Dead. 321110, o 50 

Month of May. Debussi, S.J. 32mo, o 50 

Month, New, of Mary, St. Francis de Sales. 32010, o 25 

Month, New, of St. Joseph, St. Francis de Sales. 32100, o 25 

Month, New, of the Holy Angels, St. Francis de Sales. 
32010, o 25 

Moral Principles and Medical Practice, the Basis of 
Medical Jurisprudence. By Rev. Charles Coppens, S.J., 
Professor of Medical Jurisprudence in the John A. Creighton 
Medical College, Omaha, Neb., author of text-books in 
Metaphysics, Ethics, etc. 8vo, net , 1 50 


Mr. Billy Buttons. A novel. By Walter Lecky. nmo, i 25 

Muller, Rev. Michael, C.SS.R. God the Teacher of Mankind. 
A plain, comprehensive Explanation of Christian Doctrine. 


g vols., crown 8vo. Per set, 

The Church and Her Enemies. 

The Apostles’ Creed. 

The First and Greatest Commandment. 
Explanation of the Commandments, continued 
of the Church. 

Dignity, Authority, and Duties of Parents, 
and Civil Powers, Their Enemies. 

Grace and the Sacraments. 

Holy Mass. 

Eucharist and Penance. 

Sacramentals— Prayer, etc. 

Familiar Explanation of Catholic Doctrine 


net , 9 50 
net , 1 10 
net, 1 10 
net, 1 40 
Precepts 
net , 1 10 
Ecclesiastical 


net , 1 
net, 1 
net , 1 
net , 1 
net , x 


i2tno, 


40 

25 

25 

10 

00 

00 


— — The Prodigal Son ; or, The Sinner’s Return to God. 
8vo, net , 1 00 

The Devotion of the Holy Rosary and the Five Scapulars. 

8vo, net , o 75 

The Catholic Priesthood. 2 vols., 8vo, net , 3 00 

My First Communion : The Happiest Day of My Life. 
Brennan. i6mo, illustrated, o 75 


Names that Live in Catholic Hearts. By Anna T. 
Sadlier. i2tno, 1 00 

Natural Law and Legal Practice. Lectures delivered at 
the Law School of Georgetown University, by Rev. R. I. 
Holaind, S.J. 8vo, cloth, net, 1 73 

New Testament Studies. The Chief Events in the Life of Our 
Lord. By Rt. Rev. Mgr. THOMAS J. CONATY, D.D. x 2 mo, 
cloth, illustrated, o 60 

New Testament. i2mo. New, large type. The best edition 
published. Cloth, net , o 75 

New Testament, The. Illustrated Edition. With 100 fine 
full-page illustrations. Printed in two colors. i6mo, net, o 60 

New Testament. 32010, flexible, net , o 15 


9 


Office, Complete, of Holy Week, in Latin and English. 


241110, cloth, 0.50; cloth, gilt edges, $1 00 

Also in finer bindings. 

O’Grady, Eleanor. Aids to Correct and Effective Elocution. 
i2mo, . *1 25 

Select Recitations for Schools and Academies. i2tno, *1 00 

Readings and Recitations for Juniors. i6mo, ?iet , o 50 

Elocution Class. i6mo, net , o 50 

One Angel More in Heaven. With Letters of Condolence by 
St. Francis de Sales and others. White morocco, o 50 


On the Road to Rome, and How Two Brothers Got There. 
By William Richards. i6mo, o 50 

Our Birthday Bouquet. Culled from the Shrines of Saints 
and the Gardens ot Poets. By E. C. DONNELLY. i6mo, 1 00 


Our Boys 1 and Girls’ Library. 48010, fancy boards. 


My Strange Friend. By Francis J. Finn, S.J. o 25 

The Dumb Child. By Canon Schmid. o 25 

The Boys in the Block. By Maurice F. Egan. o 25 

The Hop Blossoms. By Canon Schmid. o 25 

The Fatal Diamonds. By E. C. Donnelly. o 25 

Buzzer’s Christmas. By Mary T. Waggaman. o 25 

Godfrey the Hermit. By Canon Schmid. o 25 

The Three Little Kings. By Emmy Giehrl. o 25 

The Black Lady. By Canon Schmid. o 25 

Master Fridolin. By Emmy Giehrl. o 25 

The Cake and the Easter Eggs. By Canon Schmid. o 25 

The Lamp of the Sanctuarv. Wiseman. 025 

The Rose Bush. By Canon Schmid. o 25 

The Overseer of Mahlbourg. By Canon Schmid. o 25 

Our Favorite Devotions. By Very Rev. Dean A. A. Lings. 
24010, to 60 

Our Favorite Novenas. By the Very Rev. Dean A. A. 
Lings. 241110, to 60 

Our Lady of Good Counsel in Genazzano. By Anne R. 

Bennett, nee Gladstone. 321110, o 75 

Our Monthly Devotions. By Very Rev. Dean A. A. Lings. 
i6mo, cloth, ti 25 

Our Own Will, and How to Detect It in Our Actions. By 
Rev. John Allen, D.D. i6mo, net , o 75 


Our Young Folks 1 Library. 10 volumes, nmo. Each, o 45 


Outlaw of Camargue, The. A novel. By A. de Lamothe. 

121110, I 25 

Outlines of Dogmatic Theology. By Rev. Sylvester J. 
Hunter, S.J. 3 vols., nmo, net , 4 50 

Outlines of Jewish History, from Abraham to Our Lord. 
By Rev. F. E. Gigot, S.S. 8vo, |1 net , 1 50 

Outlines of New Testament History. By Rev. F. E. Gigot, 
S.S. 8vo, net , 1 50 

Paradise on Earth Opened to All ; or, A Religious Vocation 
the Surest Way in Life. 32100, net , o 40 


IO 


Pastime Series of Juveniles. 
The Armorer of Solingen. 
The Canary Bird. 
Wrongfully Accused. 

The Inundation. 


i6mo, cloth. 

o 45 
o 45 
o 45 
o 45 


Passing Shadows. A novel. By Anthony Yorke. umo, i 25 

Passion Flowers. Poems by Father Edmund Hill, C.P. 
i2mo, cloth, 1 25 


Pearls from Faber. Selected and arranged by Marion J. 
Brunowe. 32010, o 50 


People’s Mission Book. 32mo, paper, *0.10; per 100, 5 00 

Pere Monnier’s Ward. A novel. By Walter Lecky. 

i2mo, 1 25 

Petronilla, and Other Stories. By E. C. Donnelly, nmo, 1 00 


Philosophy, English Manuals of Catholic. 

Logic. By Richard F. Clarke, S.J. nmo, net , 1 25 

First Principles of Knowledge. By John Rickaby, S.J. 

i2mo, net , 1 25 

Moral Philosophy (Ethics and Natural Law). By Joseph 
Rickaby, S.J. 12010, net , 1 25 

Natural Theology. By Bernard Boedder, S.J. i2mo,«^, 1 50 
Psychology. By Michael Maher, S.J. 12010, net , 1 50 
General Metaphysics. By John Ricka'by, S.J. 12010, net , 1 25 
Manual of Political Economy. By C. S. Dev AS. 12010, net , 1 50 


Pictorial Game of American Catholic Authors. 

Series A, net , o 35 

Series B, net , o 35 

Pictorial Lives of the Saints. With Reflections for Every 
Day in the Year. 50th Thousand. 8vo, 100 

10 copies, 7.50; 25 copies, 17.50 ; 50 copies, 33 50 

Pious Preparation for First Holy Communion. By Rev. 
F. X. Lasance. Large 32010, t o 75 


Popular Instructions on Marriage. By Very Rev. F. 
Girardey, C.SS.R. 32010. Paper, *0.25 ; per 100, 12 50 

Cloth, *0.35 ; per 100, 21 00 

Popular Instructions on Prayer. By Very Rev. F. 
Girardey, C.SS.R. 32010. Paper, *0.25 ; per 100, 12.50. Cloth, 
*0.35 ; per 100, 21 00 

Popular Instructions to Parents on the Bringing Up of 
Children. By Very Rev. F. Girardey, C.SS.R. 32010. 
Paper, *0.25 ; per 100, 12 50 

Cloth, *0.35 ; per 100, 21 00 

Practical Guide to Indulgences, A. Rev. P. M. Bernad, 
O.M.I. (Rev. Dan’l Murray.) 2 4 mo, o 75 

Prayer. The Great Means of Obtaining Salvation. Liguori. 


321110, o 50 

Prayer-Book for Lent. Meditations and Prayers for Lent. 

32010, cloth, to 50 

Praxis Synodalis. Manuale Synodi Diocesan* ac Provincialis 
Celebrandae. 12010, net , o 60 

Priest in the Pulpit, The. A Manual of Homiletics and 
Catechetics. Schuech Luebbermann. 8vo, net , 1 50 


11 


Reading and the Mind, with Something to Read. O’Conor, 
S.J. 121110, II net, o 50 

Reasonableness of Catholic Ceremonies and Practices. 
By Rev. J.J. Burke. i2mo, flexible cloth, *0.35 ; per 100, 21 00 

Registrum Baptismorum. 3200 registers, nx 16 inches, nety 3 50 

Registrum Matrimoniorum. 3200 registers, n x 16 inches. 

net, 3 50 

Religious State, The. With a Short Treatise on Vocation 
to the Priesthood. By St. Alphonsus Liguori. 321110, 050 

Reminiscences of Rt. Rev. Edgar P. Wadhams, D.D. By 
Rev. C. A. Walworth. i2mo, illustrated, || nety 1 00 

Rights of Our Little Ones. By Rev. James Conway, S.J. 
32mo. Paper, *0.15; per 100, 9.00. Cloth, *0.25; per 100, 15 00 

Romance of a Playwright. A novel. By H. de Bornier. 
i2mo, 1 00 

Rosary, the Most Holy, in Thirty-one Meditations, Prayers, 
and Examples. By Rev. Eugene Grimm, C.SS.R. 32mo, o 50 

Round Table, The, of the Representative French Catholic 
Novelists, containing the best stories by the best writers. 
With half-tone portraits, printed in colors, biographies, etc. 
12m o, cloth, 1 50 

Round Table, A, of the Representative American Catholic 
Novelists, containing the best stories by the best writers. 
With half-tone portraits, printed in colors, biographical 
sketches, etc. nmo, 1 50 

Round Table, A, of the Representative Irish and English 
Catholic Novelists, containing the best stories by the best 
writers. With half-tone portraits, printed in colors, bio- 
graphical sketches, etc. i2mo, 1 50 

RUSSO, N., S.J. De Philosophia Morali Praelectiones in Collegio 
Georgiopolitano Soc. Jes. Anno 1889-1890. Habitae, a Patre 
Nicolao RUSSO. Editio altera. 8vo, half leather, net, 2 00 

Sacramentals of the Holy Catholic Church, The. By 
Rev. A. A. Lambing, LL.D. Illustrated edition. 241110. 
Paper, 0.25 ; 25 copies, 4.25 ; 50 copies, 7.50; 100 copies, 12 50 

Cloth, 0.50; 25 copies, 8.50 ; 50 copies, 15.00 ; 100 copies, 25 00 

Sacrament of Penance, The. Lenten Sermons. Paper, 

|| net, o 25 

Sacristan’s Guide. A Hand-book for Altar Societies and those 
having charge of the Altar. i6mo, cloth, net , o 75 

Sacristy Ritual. Rituale Compendiosum, seu Ordo Admi- 
nistrandi quaedam Sacramenta et alia officia Ecclesiastica 
Rite peragendi ex Rituale Romano novissimeeditodesumptas. 
i6mo, flexible, net , o 75 

Sacred Rhetoric, nmo, net, o 75 

Sacrifice of the Mass Worthily Celebrated, The. By 
the Rev. Father Chaignon, S.J. Translated by Rt Rev. L. 
DE Goesbriand, D.D. 8 vo, net, 150 

St. Anthony, the Saint of the Whole World. Illustrated by Pen 
and Pencil. Compiled from the best sources by Rev. THOS. 
F. Ward. Illustrated. Square nmo, cloth, o 75 


12 


Sacred Heart, Books on The. 

Child’s Prayer-Book of the Sacred Heart. 321310, o 25 

Devotions to the Sacred Heart for the First Friday. 321x10, o 40 
Imitation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. By Rev. F. 
Arnoudt. S.J. From the Latin by Rev. J. M. FaSTRE, S.J. 
i6mo, cloth, fi 25 

Little Prayer-Book of the Sacred Heart. Small 321310, $0 40 

Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Huguet. 32010, o 50 
Month of the Sacred Heart for the Young Christian. By 
Brother Philippe. 321x10, o 50 

New Month of the Sacred Heart. St. Francis de Sales. 


32010, o 25 

One and Thirty Days with Blessed Margaret Mary. 32010, 
*0.25; per 100, 15 00 

Pearls from the Casket of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 32010, o 50 
Revelations of the Sacred Heart to Blessed Margaret Mary; 

and the History of Her Life. Bougaud. 8vo, net , 1 50 

Sacred Heart Studied in the Sacred Scriptures. By Rev. H. 

Saintrain. C.SS.R. 8 vo , net , 2 00 

Six Sermons on Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

Bierbaum. i6mo, net . o 60 

Year of the Sacred Heart. Drawn from the works of Pere 
de la Colombiere, of Margaret Mary, and of others. 


32010, o 50 

St. Chantal and the Foundation of the Visitation. By 
Monseigneur Bougaud. 2 vols., 8vo, net, 4 00 

St. Joseph Our Advocate. From the French of Rev. Father 
Huguet. 24010, o 75 

Schmid, Canon, Canary Bird, The. i6mo, o 45 

Black Lady, The, and Robin Redbreast. 24100, o 25 

Rose Bush, The. 24100, o 25 

Overseer of Mahlbourg, The. 24010, o 25 

Hop Blossoms, The. 24010, o 25 

Godfrey the Hermit. 24010, o 25 

Cake, The, and the Easter Eggs. 24010, o 25 


Secret of Sanctity, The. According to St. Francis de 
Sales and Father Crasset, S.J. 12010, net, 100 

Seraphic Guide. A Manual for the Members of the Third 
Order of St. Francis. Cloth, to 60 

Roan, red edges. to 75 

The same in German at the same prices. 


Sermons. See also “ Hunolt,” “ Sacrament of Penance,” “ Seven 
Last Words,” and “Two-Edged Sword.” 

Sermons for the Children of Mary. From the Italian of 
Rev. F. Callerio. Revised by Rev. R. F. Clarke, S.J. 
8vo, cloth, net , 1 50 

Sermons, Funeral. 2 vols., H net, 2 00 

Sermons, Lenten. Large 8vo, II net, 2 00 

Sermons, Old and New. 8 vols., 8vo, II net , 16 00 

Sermons on Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, and the 
Saints. By Rev. F. Hunolt, S.J. Translated by Rev. J. 
Allen, D.D. 2 vols., 8vo, net , 5 00 

Sermons on Penance. By Rev. F. Hunolt, S.J. Translated 
by Rev. J. Allen, D.D. 2 vols., 8vo, net, 5 00 

Sermons on the Blessed Virgin. By Very Rev. D. I. 
McDermott. i6mo, net, 07s 


13 


Sermons on the Christian Virtues. By Rev. F. Hunolt, 
S.J. Translated by Rev. J. Allen, D.D. 2Vols.,8vo, net , 5 00 

Sermons on the Different States of Life. By Rev. F. 
Hunolt, S J. Translated by Rev. J. Allen, D.D. 2 vols., 
8vo, net , s 00 

Sermons on the Four Last Things. By Rev. F. Hunolt, 
S.J. Translated by Rev. J. Allen, D.D. 2 vols., 8vo, net , 500 

Sermons on the Seven Deadly Sins. By Rev. F. Hunolt, 
S.J. Translated by Rev. J. Allen, D.D. 2 vols., 8vo, net , 500 

Sermons, abridged, for all the Sundays and Holydays. By St. 
Alphonsus Liguori. i2mo, net , 1 25 


Sermons for the Sundays and Chief Festivals of the Ecclesiastical 
Year. With Two Courses of Lenten Sermons and a Triduutn 
for the Forty Hours. By Rev. JULIUS POTTGEISSER, S.J. 
From the German by Rev. James Conway, S.J. 2 vols., 
8vo, net , 2 50 

Sermons on the Most Holy Rosary. By Rev. M. J. Frings. 

i2mo, net , 1 00 

Sermons, Short, for Low Masses. By Rev. F. X. Schouppe, 
S.J. i2mo, net , i 25 

Sermons, Six, on the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Bierbaum. 

i6mo, net , o 60 

Short Conferences on the Little Office of the Immacu- 
late ( onception. By Very Rev. Joseph Rainer. With 
Prayers. 32mo, o 50 

Short Stories on Christian Doctrine : A Collection of 
Examples Illustrating the Catechism. From the French by 
Mary McMahon. i2tno, illustrated, net , o 75 

Smith, Rev. S. B., D.D. Elements of Ecclesiastical Law. 

Vol. I. Ecclesiastical Persons. 8vo, net , 2 50 

Vol. II. Ecclesiastical Trials. 8vo, net , 2 50 

Vol. III. Ecclesiastical Punishments. 8vo, net , 2 50 

Compendium Juris Canonici, ad Usum Cleri et Semina- 

riorum hujus regionis accommodatum. 8vo, net , 2 00 

The Marriage Process in the United States. 8vo, net , 2 50 


Sodalists’ Vade Mecum. A Manual, Prayer-Book, and 

Hymnal. 32010, cloth, 50 

Songs and Sonnets, and Other Poems. By Maurice F. Egan. 

i2mo, cloth, 1 00 

Souvenir of the Novitiate. From the French by Rev. 

Edward I. Taylor. 32mo, net , o 60 

Spiritual Crumbs for Hungry Little Souls. To which are 
added Stories from the Bible. Richardson. i6mo, o 50 

Spiritual Exercises for a Ten Days’ Retreat. By Very Rev. 

R. v. Smetana, C.SS.R., net , 1 00 

Stang, Rev. William, D.D, Pastoral Theology. New enlarged 
edition. 8vo, net , 1 50 

Eve of the Reformation, nmo, paper, || net , o 25 

— Historiographia Ecclesiastica quam Historiae seriam Soli- 

damque Operam Navantibus, Accommodavit Guil. Stang, 
D.D. i2mo, • || net , 1 00 

Business Guide for Priests. 8vo, cloth, net , o 85 

Stories for First Communicants, for the time before and 
after First Communion. By Rev. J. A. Keller, D.D. 
32mo, o 50 


14 


Story of the Divine Child. Told for Children in Pictures 
and in Words. By Rev. Dean A. A. Lings. i6mo, 075 

Striving After Perfection. By Rev. J. Bayma, S.J. 
i6mo, net, 1 00 

Sure Way to a Happy Marriage. Paper, *0.25 ; per ioo, 12 50 
Cloth, 0.35 ; per 100, 21 00 


Tales and Legends of the Middle Ages. From the Spanish 
of F. de P. Capella. By Henry Wilson. i6mo, o 75 

Tanquerey, Rev. Ad.. S.S. Synopsis Theologiae Fundamentalis. 


8vo, net , 1 50 

Synopsis Theologia Dogmatica Specialis. 2 vols., 8vo, 

net , 3 00 

Thought from St. Alphonsus. for Every Day. 32mo, net , o 35 

Thought from Benedictine Saints. 32mo, net , o 35 

Thought from Dominican Saints. 32010, net, o 35 

Thought from St. Francis Assisi. 32010, net , o 35 

Thought from St. Ignatius. 32010, net, o 35 

Thought from St. Teresa. 32010, net, o 35 

Thought from St. Vincent de Paul. 32010, net , o 3s 


Thoughts and Counsels for the Consideration of Catho- 
lic Young Men. By Rev. P. A. Von Doss, S.J. 12010, || net, 1 25 
Travellers' Daily Companion. A 5-cent prayer-book which 
one can continually carry about the person. Cloth, to.05; 
per 100, 3 50 

Treasure of Nugget Mountain, The. (Jack Hildreth Among 
the Indians.) M. A. Taggart. 12010, o 85 

True Politeness. Addressed to Religious. By Rev. Francis 
Demore. i6mo, net, o 60 

True Spouse of Christ. By St. Alphonsus Liguori. 2 
vols., i2mo, net, 2.50; 1 vol., 12010, net, 1 00 

True Story of Master Gerard, The. A novel. By Anna T- 
Sadlier. 12010, cloth, 1 25 

Twelve Virtues, The, of a Good Teacher. For Mothers, 
Instructors, etc. By Rev. H. Pottier, S. J. 32010, net , o 30 
Two-Edged Sword, The. Lenten Sermons, Paper. || net , o 25 
Two Retreats for Sisters. By Rev. E. Zollner. umo, 

I! net, 1 00 

Vade Mecum Sacerdotum. 48mo, cloth, net , 0.25; morocco, 
flexible, net, o 50 

Veneration of the Blessed Virgin. Her Feasts, Prayers, 
Religious Orders, and Sodalities. By Rev. B. Rohner, 
O.S.B. Adapted by Rev. Richard Brennan, LL.D. 
12010, 1 25 

VIA Cceli. A new Book of Prayer. Artistically illustrated, 
convenient in form. 32010, lambskin, to 90 

Visit to Europe and the Holy Land. By Rev. H. F. 

Fairbanks, umo, illustrated, 1 50 

Visits to Jesus in the Tabernacle. Hours and Half-Hours 
of Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament. By Rev. F. X. 

Lasance. i6mo, cloth, ti 25 


15 


Visits to the Most Holy Sacrament and to the Blessed 
Virgin Mary. LlGUORl. 321110, *0.50; per 100, 25 co 

Vocations Explained : Matrimony, Virginity, the Religious 
State, and the Priesthood. By a Vincentian Father. i6mo, 
flexible, *0.10; per 100, , 5 00 

Ward, Rev. Thos. F. Fifty-two Instructions on the Principal 
Truths of Our Holy Religion. 12010, net , o 75 

Thirty-two Instructions for the Month of May. nmo, 

net , o 75 

Month of May at Mary’s Altar. i2mo, net , o 75 

Short Instructions for Sundays and Holydays. umo, 

net , 1 25 

Way of Interior Peace. By Rev. Father de Lehen, S.J. 
From the German Version of Rev. J. Brucker, S.J 
i2mo, net , 1 25 

Way of the Cross. Illustrated. Paper, *0.05 ; per 100, 2 50 

What Catholics Have Done for Science. Brennan. 

i2ino, 1 00 

Widows and Charity. Work of the Women of Calvary and Its 
Foundress. By the Abb£ Chaff anjon. nmo, paper, || net o 50 
Winnetou, the Apache Knight. (Jack Hildreth Among the 
Indians.) M. A. Taggart, wmo, 085 

Woman of Fortune, A. A novel. By Christian Reid. 

i2mo, 1 25 

Women of Catholicity. Sadlier. nmo, 1 00 

Words of Jesus Christ During His Passion. Schouppe, 

S.J. 32mo, *0.25 ; per 100, 15 00 

Words of Wisdom. A Concordance of the Sapiential Books. 

i2mo, net, 1 25 

World Well Lost, The. A novel. By Esther Robertson. 

i6mo, o 75 

Wuest, Rev. Joseph, C.SS.R. Devotio Quadraginta Hora- 
rum. 32U10, J net , o 15 

Young Girl’s Book of Piety. i6mo, ji 00 

Zeal in the Work of the Ministry ; or, The Means by 
Which Every Priest May Render His Ministry Honorable and 
Fruitful. From the French of L’Abb£ Dubois. 8vo, net, 1 50 


OUR BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ OWN. 

AN ILLUSTRATED CATHOLIC MONTHLY. 

Subscription, $1.00 a year. Single copies, 10 cents. 

STORIES BY THE FOREMOST CATHOLIC WRITERS: 
Father Finn, Ella Loraine Dorsey, Katharine Tynan Hinkson, 
Marion Ames Taggart, Maurice Francis Egan, Mary G. Bonesteel, 
Marion J. Brunowe, Mary C. Crowley, Eleanor C. Donnelly, 
Mary T. Waggaman, Katherine Jenkins, Sallie Margaret O’Malley, 
Anna T. Sadlier, etc. 

SPECIAL ILLUSTRATED ARTICLES on Interesting Subjects. 

REGULAR DEPARTMENTS: Current Events, Science and In- 
ventions, Catholic Teaching, Art, Photography, The Household, 
Amusements, Games, Tricks, etc.. Puzzles and Problems, Letter 
Box, Prize Question Box, Story Writing, Penmanship and Draw- 
ing Contests. 

ILLUSTRATIONS: A special feature of “Our Boys’ and Girls’ 
Own ’’ are the illustrations of the stories and of the articles. Be- 
sides this there are numerous other illustrations that delight young 
and old. 


16 


% 






library of congress 


0D02SbST527 



